New Alloy Becomes Magnetic on Heating

This video is short, and really pretty boring if you don’t know what’s going on. Shown is a chunk of new alloy (Ni₄₅Co₅Mn₄₀Sn₁₀) that undergoes a phase change, at about 125C, from a nonmagnetic material to one that is strongly magnetic. If you bias the system with an additional, permanent magnet, heating the system past the transition temperature produces an electric current in a nearby coil, thereby converting heat to electricity. The alloy was produced by Vijay Srivastava, Yintao Song, Kanwal Bhatti, and R. D. James at the University of Minnesota and recently published in Advanced Energy Materials. [via adafruit]