Using electricity to switch magnetism

At TU Wien, a major step has been taken towards linking electrical and magnetic material properties, which is crucial for possible applications in electronics. It's not exactly a new revelation that electricity and magnetism are closely linked. And yet, magnetic and electrical effects have been studied separately for some time now within the field of materials science. Magnetic fields will usually be used to influence magnetic material properties, whilst electrical properties come down to electrical voltage. Then we have multiferroics - a special group of materials that combine the two. In a new development, TU Wien has managed to use electrical fields to control the magnetic oscillations of certain ferrous materials. This has opened up huge potential for computer technology applications, as data is currently transferred in the form of electrical signals but stored magnetically.