Teaching matter waves new tricks: Making magnets with ultra cold atoms

Magnets have fascinated humankind for millenia. From the Greek philosophers to scientists of the modern era, which saw the rise of quantum mechanics, magnets have been pondered and investigated. Nowadays, they are not only intriguing oddities of nature, but also constitute crucial building blocks of modern technology: Ranging from data storage over medical instrumentation to transportation. And yet, to this day, they continue to puzzle scientists.