assistant to George Hadjipanayis' shocking news came to him: Part of an incredibly strong magnetic field was created in their laboratory instruments go haywire.

"Have you lost your mind," recalls telling Hadjipanayis early 1980. "You have something wrong, go back and try again.

There was nothing wrong, though, and Hadjipanayis soon realized that his team had inadvertently created what was and still is the strongest magnet in the world - made a neodymium strange and a bit 'meaning "land Rare element called. This magnet could help to revolutionize the technology, turbine engines and power to provide juice for electric cars.

But luck would not last.

accessible supplies of neodymium and 16 other rare earth elements - they occupy the bottom two lines orphans of the periodic table - are short. China, which controls the supply of 97% of these materials, not shared with the West. And the only U.S. mine for rare earth elements of the production after a radioactive waste accident in the 1990's.

Add to this the fact that rare earth elements are important for all types of technologies - these are smart phones vibrate why TVs have the reds and greens, and how hard drives are capable of writing data - and you have a recipe very scary technologists and researchers.

What would happen to our technology landscape without these rare earth?

Hadjipanayis, chairman of physics at the University of Delaware, and researchers from two institutions, the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory in Iowa and GE Global Research in New York, are preparing for this day.

They are in a race to make a magnet stronger than ever - an essential component in green technologies, which use magnets for the transfer of power in motion. And try to do with neodymium as little as possible because this element is more difficult to find.

To Hadjipanayis, is a personal and professional struggle. It tries to recreate the success he had accidentally magnets in the 1980's.

"They are under pressure," he said. "Look, this is not easy. I mean, you also need some luck. We have this notion, but there are many obstacles that we must resolve before we can succeed."

Rare Earth Mysteries

rare-earth elements have strange magnetic and an important feature not found elsewhere in our mobile unit.

To understand precisely why the question would require a post-graduate degrees, as well as chemistry and physics, but the for-dummies version goes something like this, according to Frank Johnson, materials science, GE Global Research:

"In a magnetic material, magnetic ions are connected by springs."

To keep the metaphor again, a typical element of the rare earth is full of super-powerful spring, but they are all messed up, facing different directions, as if they had been thrown on the floor in a closet.

Something magical happens when a rare earth element neodymium is combined with other specific elements: they form crystals. And if the design of these crystals are just right, all the super-powerful springs to settle, and - bam! - The springs are mutually reinforcing and that you have very powerful magnet.

"They are a very unique, and the science of them is fascinating," said Johnson.

Metal recipes

Hadjipanayis did not know that boron was the missing ingredient when he asked his laboratory assistant to add gas to the metal compound they worked with.

All I knew was that the experiment went wrong, because the metal remained in ruins and rubble. He thought that boron can do for the solution of metal that eggs and milk to make the cake batter. He would fix things.

The unexpected result discovered neodymium-iron-boron, which was much stronger than anything that preceded it.

"For me it was time for a very exciting experience," said Hadjipanayis.

It retains many of these companies nickel magnets on your desktop to show visitors.

Scientists measure the strength of magnets with a device called a "maximum energy product." A typical refrigerator magnet has a rating of 3 or 4

Neodymium current 57-60 record.

Several years ago, remembers going to the airport neodymium Hadjipanayis hidden in his jacket pocket.

He approached a security metal object, he said, but I have temporarily blocked.

Hadjipanayis broke free of this situation. But if the two neodymium magnets are then attached, cut it into two parts. "

"If you're an ordinary person, you can not separate them" dragging, "he said.

Hadjipanayis and now researchers at GE and Ames Laboratory in Iowa trying to create magnets that are almost twice as high.

A world without rare earth

In addition to trying to come with the magnets, which do not depend so much rare earth mining companies seek to produce new supplies.

This includes environmental risks, however.

China became the world leader in mining rare earth production and partly because he is more willing to put up with these risks the United States cope with their head in the 1990s. A wealth of rare earth is now owned minerals Molycorp was fined in 1998 for leaking hundreds of gallons of wastewater containing low levels of radioactive material.

Molycorp mine in the California desert near the Nevada border, is to reopen this year. U.S. A Department of Energy report in December that the country needs to increase its production of rare earths in order to ensure that the technology companies here to keep a supply of these vital elements.

Molycorp spokesman, Jim Sims said that my new and upgrade the computer center to set the U.S. back to the business of rare-earth - and do so safely.

"America will have the capability most environmentally innovative and technologically advanced treatment of rare earths," said Sims.

Starting a large amount of rare earth elements is costly, lengthy and difficult, however. The elements are not rare in nature but are usually found in relatively small quantities, mixed with other materials, making them difficult and uneconomical to extract and process.

Therefore, the Energy Department also says that we must seek alternatives. And that is where researchers come in. magnet

Wing of the Department of Energy called the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E has taken $ 6,600,000 grants, program development, magnet, which is more powerful than anything existing on earth today - and consume much less neodymium.

It is important, because a world without rare earth magnets - or a substitute unknown - would be major changes in technology, "said Karl Gschneidner, a metallurgist at the Ames Laboratory Senior, who is in this race. For example, without rare earth magnets are the laptops can be three to four times heavier than today.

"There is no other alternative for them," he said.

And we could create one, as a magnet researchers mainly trying to do?

"The odds are less than 50-50."

Remixing magic of nature

At the top of the natural magic of the rare earth is not an easy task.

Hadjipanayis and other researchers are using nanotechnology to the main recipe remix strongest magnets today.

Now the best they can do is to break the three components of neodymium into small pieces, which contain only a few thousand atoms and measure 20 nanometers across. About 2,500 of these little "composite", Hadjipanayis like to call them to fit the width of human hair.

Then, the laboratory has a weird technique, chemical treatment by vigorously agitating parties, trying to merge these pieces back together.

Hadjipanayis said it feels like you're trying to cram 100 years the value of retirement three years, forming his contract Energy Department. Visit the laboratory on a daily basis to monitor progress. He is concerned about the level of risk.

But he sees it as a subsidy for himself and others to ensure U.S. has a future in green technologies.

"If that happens, then revolutionize everything," he said.

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