Credit: Berkeley Lab Illustration of the one-atom-thin 2D magnet. Red represents cobalt atoms; blue represents oxygen atoms; and yellow represents zinc atoms. The development of an ultrathin magnet that operates at room temperature could lead to new applications in computing and electronics — such as high-density, compact spintronic memory devices — and new tools for the study of quantum physics. The ultrathin magnet, which was recently reported in the journal Nature Communications, could make big advances in next-gen memory devices, computing, spintronics and quantum physics. It was discovered by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley.