Coming soon to a lab tabletop near you: a method of magneto-thermal imaging that offers nanoscale and picosecond resolution previously available only in synchrotron facilities.

This innovation in spatial and will give researchers extraordinary views into the magnetic properties of a range of materials, from metals to insulators, all from the comfort of their labs, potentially boosting the development of magnetic storage devices.

"Magnetic X-ray microscopy is a relatively rare bird," said Greg Fuchs, associate professor of applied and engineering physics, who led the project. "The magnetic microscopies that can do this sort of spatial and temporal resolution are very few and far between. Normally, you have to pick either spatial or temporal. You can't get them both. There's only about four or five places in the world that have that capability. So having the ability to do it on a tabletop is really enabling spin dynamics at nanoscale for research."

His team's paper, "Nanoscale Magnetization and Current Imaging Using Time-Resolved Scanning-Probe Magnetothermal Microscopy," published June 8 in the American Chemical Society's journal Nano Letters. The lead author is postdoctoral researcher Chi Zhang.

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