Nuclear Magnetic Ordering at Nanokelvin Temperatures

OCT 01, 1989

If you cool a suitable metal such as copper to sufficiently low temperatures, its nuclei will align spontaneously; susceptibility and neutron diffraction experiments have detected the effect and have set a new low‐temperature record in the process.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881204

Olli V. Lounasmaa

Just as electrons engage in spontaneous magnetic ordering, accounting for such phenomena as ferromagnetic domains, so too can nuclei order spontaneously. However, because nuclear magnetic moments are very much smaller than electron magnetic moments, spontaneous nuclear ordering occurs only at extremely low temperatures. As we will see, experiments conducted in the course of research on nuclear ordering have produced spin temperatures as low as 25 nanokelvins in copper and 2 nanokelvins in silver.

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More about the authors

Olli V. Lounasmaa, Helsinki University of Technology.