New Type of Chemical Bond Predicted To Exist In White Dwarfs 97
ananyo writes "A previously unknown type of powerful chemical bond should be induced by the ferocious magnetic fields of white dwarfs and neutron stars, according to computer simulations. If the effect can be harnessed in the lab, 'magnetized matter' could be exploited for quantum computing. Chemists identify two classes of strong molecular bonds: ionic bonds, in which electrons from one atom hop over to another, and covalent bonds, in which electrons are shared between atoms. But researchers at the University of Oslo accidentally discovered a third bonding mechanism when they simulated how atoms should behave under magnetic fields of about 105 tesla — 10,000 times the biggest fields that can be generated on Earth (abstract)."
105 Tesla (Score:5, Informative)
Re:105 Tesla isn't that strong a field... (Score:5, Informative)
TFS is wrong. It's not 105 T, it's 10^5 T.
Third type of chemical bond? (Score:4, Informative)
I think I'll have to dig up the Science article to get really meangful info on this.
Some comments beyond the 10 teslas correction... (Score:4, Informative)
Covalent: that old, nice and sharing couple;
Ionic: same as above, but one of them is abusive and electron digger;
Metallic bond: communism of electrons (or orgy, if you prefer).You know, covalent and ionic aFirst: covalent and ionic aren't two "types" of bonds but extremes of the same continuum. Some bonds - like in hydrogen fluoride - lie pretty much between them, not being fully ionic or fully covalent.
Second thing: ironically, there is no such thing as "types" of bonds. These three categories above aren't "unmixable", you have "metallic" bonds with covalent properties (like gold loves to make), you have borderline covalent-ionic bonds (like HF), this kind of thing. Think in them as extremes in a triangle, while most real life bonds lie inside this triangle.
Lastly, about the article itself... seems like "quantum computing" is what they put when they cannot think in an application to a Chem or Phys discovery nowadays. And I understood they didn't found a new bond type or whatever; their discovery was "oh look, orbitals can be deformed by magnetic fields!".
Re:105 Tesla (Score:5, Informative)
You're correct, but even so, the statement
is complete bullshit. Superconducting MRIs produce 3T fields just fine. And check out the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory; they have the record field strength of 100.75T [fsu.edu]
10^5 Tesla is doable in a Dense Plasma Focus (Score:2, Informative)
A Dense Plasma Focus [wikipedia.org] can produce Giga Gauss fields (1GG = 10^5 Tesla), though only in a very small space.
See for example:
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/1770673_Advances_towards_pB11_Fusion_with_the_Dense_Plasma_Focus" [researchgate.net]
(Was the first link that came up at Google searching for "dense plasma focus gg")
Re:Some comments beyond the 10 teslas correction.. (Score:4, Informative)
Everybody and their dog already knew that orbitals are deformed by magnetic fields. What they found is that the model of how they deform is wrong at very intense fields.