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Cerdanyola del Vallès, 1st December 2017. Since the 1950's, magnetic materials have been used to store all kinds of information. Magnetically stored information is convenient because it is easily accessible using very well-known magnetic data reading procedures. However, sensitive information must be carefully stored to ensure confidentiality; thus easy access becomes a bad instead of a good feature. The optimal way to prevent unauthorized information access is to make it invisible. Following this idea, ICMAB researchers (I. Fina; C. Frontera; F. Sanchez & J. Fontcuberta), in collaboration with researchers from Berkeley Lab (CA, USA), Germany and the ALBA Synchrotron, have used the XMCD-PEEM technique of the CIRCE beamline in combination with macromagnetic characterization tools for revealing the ability of peculiar magnetic materials to hide magnetic information and reveal it under certain conditions and at room temperature. When combined with appropriate piezoelectric materials, this information can be electrically hidden and retrieved, while the means of storing and reading magnetic information are not needed to be modified. This research has been recently published in the journal Scientific Reports. This extra level of security presented by these materials makes them suitable in high security devices and systems.
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