A research published in the journal Nature has unveiled about a new technique that turns two metals, like copper and manganese, which do not have magnetic properties, into magnets. It happened so as by combining metal films with carbon-based organic molecules.

Oscar Cespedes of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom said that the metals do become magnets, but the magnetism does not last after a few days. The technique could help in coming up with new types of hybrid metal-organic magnets, further proving useful in applications like medical imaging.

A theory devised in 1930 by the theoretical physicist Edmund Stoner was used as a base for carrying out the researches. Cespedes explained that copper and manganese, non-magnetic metals, became magnets after coming in contact with buckminsterfullerene molecules.

The discovery made by physicists in the UK, US and Switzerland could lead to innovation of new types of electronic devices and may even find a use in quantum computers. Ferromagnets are materials that have permanent magnetic properties.

There are only three metals, iron, nickel and cobalt that are ferromagnetic at room temperature. In the current research, scientists found a way to boost the density of states (DOS), the number of energy states available to the electrons, and exchange interaction in copper and manganese, so that they become ferromagnetic at room temperature.

The researchers made samples by having several alternating layers of C60 and copper or manganese on a substrate. C60 was used due to large electron affinity. When the magnetization of the layered samples was assessed, they were found to be ferromagnetic materials.