https://phys.org/news/2018-05-scientists-magnetic-element.html > Magnetic materials are very important in industry and modern technology and have been used for fundamental studies and in many everyday applications such as sensors, electric motors, generators, hard disk media, and most recently spintronic memories. As thin film growth has improved over the past few decades, so has the ability to control the structure of crystal lattices—or even force structures that are impossible in nature. This new study demonstrates that Ru can be the fourth single element ferromagnetic material by using ultra-thin films to force the ferromagnetic phase. > The details of their work are published in the most recent issue of Nature Communications. The lead author of the paper is a recent University of Minnesota Ph.D. graduate Patrick Quarterman, who is a National Research Council (NRC) postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).