Ultra-thin material creates a magnetic mystery

Ultra-thin flakes of bismuth display mysterious magnetic properties – which could help the soft, iridescent metal become a wonder material for making greener electronics.

“Frankly, I’m still waking up at night because I wonder: what is at play here?” says Guillaume Gervais at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Researchers have suspected that very thin flakes of bismuth could have unusual physical properties, as other ultra-thin materials like carbon-based graphene do. But because bismuth is so…