Most materials that exhibit spontaneous macroscopic magnetisation do so in a solid phase. For example, iron is ferromagnetic at room temperature, but loses its ferromagnetism on heating long before it melts. Exotic exceptions to this rule generally occur only at very low or very high temperatures. Now Mertelj and colleagues report on a room-temperature liquid which exhibits ferromagnetic behaviour [1]. The authors created suspensions of nanometre-sized ferrite platelets in a nematic liquid crystal and investigated the material's behaviour using polarising optical microscopy, magnetometry, and dynamic light scattering. The result, it is claimed, is the first experimental demonstration of a theoretical prediction made over 40 years ago by Brochard and de Gennes.
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