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Condensed-matter physics

Wien route to monopoles

Nature volume 461, pages 888–889 (2009)Cite this article

Determining the magnetic charge of monopoles in a crystalline host seemed a mountain too high for physicists to climb. An experiment based on Wien's theory of electrolytes has now measured its value.

The exotic class of crystalline solids known as 'spin ices' has proved, perhaps surprisingly, to be a repository of some elegant physical phenomena. Spin ices are rare, three-dimensional systems in which the magnetic moments (spins) of the ions remain disordered even at the lowest temperatures available. In these crystalline solids, it has been recognized that a material's collective excitations above the ground state behave as point-like objects that are the condensed-matter versions of magnetic monopoles1 — particles that, unlike iron magnets, have a single magnetic pole and hence carry an overall magnetic charge.

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  1. Shivaji Sondhi is in the Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA. sondhi@princeton.edu,

    Shivaji Sondhi

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  1. Shivaji Sondhi
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Sondhi, S. Wien route to monopoles. Nature 461, 888–889 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/461888a

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