X-ray reveals that metal-free carbon could become magnetic at room temperature

For many years, the existence of magnetic carbon has remained an enigma. Previous claims to have solved the mystery were subsequently disproved when it was found that magnetic metals like iron, nickel, etc, were probably present in the carbon samples. Recently, Dr. Ohldag (Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory) and his colleagues have shown that pure carbon can be made permanently magnetic at room temperature after carrying out a series of careful measurements including scanning transmission X-ray microscopy, X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD), PIXE analysis (to check for contamination by magnetic metals), AFM, and MFM etc. The team found that the magnetic order originates only from the carbon p-electron system. For more information, see the paper, p-Electron Ferromagnetism in Metal-Free Carbon Probed by Soft X-Ray Dichroism", H. Ohldag et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 98,187204 (2007).