Diamagnetic Levitation

Many common materials such as water, wood, plants, animals, diamonds, fingers, etc. are usually
considered to be non-magnetic but in fact, they are very weakly diamagnetic. Diamagnets repel,
and are repelled by a strong magnetic field. The electrons in a diamagnetic material rearrange their
orbits slightly creating small persistent currents which oppose the external magnetic field. Two of
the strongest diamagnetic materials are graphite and bismuth.
The forces created by diamagnetism are extremely weak, millions of times smaller than the forces
between magnets and such common ferromagnetic materials as iron. However, in certain carefully
arranged situations, the influence of diamagnetic materials can produce startling effects such as
levitation.
It was proved in 1842 that it is impossible to stably levitate any static array of magnets by any
arrangement of fixed magnets and gravity. However, the addition of diamagnetic materials makes
such levitation possible. The July 22 Nature paper, Magnetic Levitation at your fingertips,
describes two configurations where diamagnetic materials are used to stabilize the levitation of a
magnet in the field of a fixed lifting magnet.
In the first configuration, the magnet is levitated by a vertical superconducting solenoid
electromagnet at a point where it is vertically stable but horizontally unstable. This means that the
floating magnet wants to move off center and hit the walls of the solenoid. If a diamagnetic
bismuth liner is added to the inside wall of the solenoid, it repels the magnet overcoming the
horizontal instability and produces stable levitation of the magnet.

In the second configuration, the magnet is levitated at a point far below the electromagnet where it
is stable horizontally, but vertically unstable. Diamagnetic plates are put above and below the
magnet to stabilize the vertical motion. In this case, human fingers were used as the stabilizing
diamagnetic plates, accomplishing for real what magicians do by illusion.

If a stronger diamagnetic material such as graphite is used for vertical stabilization, the levitation
can be accomplished with common permanent magnets in a small hand held device. This type of
levitator may find use as a frictionless bearing and is a candidate to replace servo levitators for
some applications.
Earlier A. Geim has demonstrated the suspension of living things such as frogs in a strong
magnetic field. The diamagnetic repulsion of the living tissue exactly balances gravity throughout
the body. This makes it feasible to investigate the effects of weightlessness on small bodies without
going into space.
Here are some new pictures of the levitation of pieces of graphite by permanent magnets. More
details and another configuration coming soon.

Details about the planar magnet array above and other interesting configurations can be seen at
Meredith Lamb's website.
A new, long technical paper on Diamagnetic Stabilization of Magnet Levitation is available here.
A shorter published technical paper is available here.
Martin Simon, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA
Andre Geim, High Field Magnet Laboratory, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
A description of this work and much more about levitation can be found at Andre Geim's website.
Another magnetic levitator which gets around Earnshaw's Theorem in a different way is the
levitron. This link takes you to an explanation of Spin-stabilized magnetic levitation.

A little frog (alive !) and a water ball levitate inside a 32mm vertical bore of a
Bitter solenoid in a magnetic field of about 16 Tesla at the Nijmegen High Field
Magnet Laboratory.

Why Frogs ?

To the MOVIES of levitating objects.

The image of a high-temperature superconductor levitating above a magnet in fog of liquid

nitrogen can hardly surprise anyone these days it has become common knowledge that
superconductors are ideal diamagnetics and magnetic field must expel them. On the other hand, the
enclosed photographs of water and a frog hovering inside a magnet (not on board a spacecraft) are
somewhat counterintuitive and will probably take many people (even physicists) by surprise. This
is the first observation of magnetic levitation of living organisms as well as the first images of
diamagnetics levitated in a normal, room-temperature environment (if we disregard the tale about
Flying Coffin of Mohammed as such evidence, of course). In fact, it is possible to levitate
magnetically every material and every living creature on the earth due to the always present
molecular magnetism. The molecular magnetism is very weak (millions times weaker than
ferromagnetism) and usually remains unnoticed in everyday life, thereby producing the wrong
impression that materials around us are mainly nonmagnetic. But they are all magnetic. It is just
that magnetic fields required to levitate all these "nonmagnetic" materials have to be
approximately 100 times larger than for the case of, say, superconductors.

Whether an object will or will not levitate in a magnetic field B is defined by the balance between
the magnetic force F = M B and gravity mg = V g where is the material density, V is the
volume and g = 9.8m/s2. The magnetic moment M = ( / 0)VB so that F = ( /0)BV B = (
/20)V B2. Therefore, the vertical field gradient B2 required for levitation has to be larger than
20 g/ . Molecular susceptibilities are typically 10-5 for diamagnetics and 10-3 for paramagnetic
materials and, since is most often a few g/cm3, their magnetic levitation requires field gradients

~1000 and 10 T2/m, respectively. Taking l = 10cm as a typical size of high-field magnets and B2
~ B2/l as an estimate, we find that fields of the order of 1 and 10T are sufficient to cause levitation
of para- and diamagnetics. This result should not come as a surprise because, as we know,
magnetic fields of less than 0.1T can levitate a superconductor ( = -1) and, from the formulas
above, the magnetic force increases as B2.
If the above is too complicated for you, read the SIMPLE EXPLANATION.

The water and the frog are but two examples of magnetic levitation. We have observed plenty of
other materials floating in magnetic field - from simple metals (Bi and Sb), liquids (propanol,
acetone and liquid nitrogen) and various polymers to everyday things such as various plants and
living creatures (frogs, fish and a mouse). We hope that our photographs will help many
particularly, non-physicists to appreciate the importance of magnetism in the world around us.
For instance, it is not always necessary to organize a space mission to study the effects of
microgravity some experiments, e.g. plants or crystal growth, can be performed inside a magnet
instead. Importantly, the ability to levitate does not depend on the amount of material involved, V,
and high-field magnets can be made to accommodate large objects, animals or even man. In the
case of living organisms, no adverse effects of strong static magnetic fields are known after all,
our frog levitated in fields comparable to those used in commercial in-vivo imaging systems
(currently up to 10T). The small frog looked comfortable inside the magnet and, afterwards,
happily joined its fellow frogs in a biology department.

There is one important aspect in which the diamagnetic levitation differs from any
other known way of levitating or floating things. In the case of diamagnetic
levitation, the gravitational force is compensated on the level of individual atoms
and molecules. This is, in fact, as close as we can - probably ever - approach the
science-fiction antigravity machine.

MOVIES and more photographs of levitating objects.

The best of the press coverage:
"If frogs can fly, there is no reason why John Major cannot be Prime Minister"
And the best of public response so far:
(HAVE A GOOD LAUGH!)

This original work carried out by Nijmegen's researchers was first featured in Physics
World, April 1997, p. 28
The most complete account is given in
o "Everyone's Magnetism" by A.Geim, Physics Today, Sep.1998, page 36-39 and

"Of Flying Frogs and Levitrons" by M.V.Berry and A.K.Geim, European

Journal of Physics, v. 18, p. 307-313 (1997).
Further reading:
o "Magnetic Levitation"
o E.H. Brandt, Science 243, 349 (1989) and Physics World, September 1997
o Good popular book on magnetism: "Driving Force" by James Livingston.
o If you like to learn more about (micro-) gravity and how its absence can effect
living organisms, please visit the Dutch Experiment Support Center: one of the
websites related to the European Space Agency.
o

Navigation map:

Why does the frog fly?

(this explanation is written in response to numerous inquiries from children who have not
studied physics yet ...
or even do not want to study it at all)

As you might well know, all matter in the universe consists of small particles called atoms and
each atom contains electrons that circle around a nucleus. This is how the world is made.
If one places an atom (or a large piece of a matter containing billions and billions of atoms) in a
magnetic field, electrons doing their circles inside do not like this very much. They alter their
motion in such a way as to oppose this external influence.
Incidentally, this is the most general principle of Nature: whenever one tries to change something
settled and quiet, the reaction is always negative (you can easily check out that this principle also
applies to the interaction between you and your parents). So, according to this principle, the
disturbed electrons create their own magnetic field and as a result the atoms behave as little
magnetic needles pointing in the direction opposite to the applied field*.
As you probably saw many times when playing with magnets, magnets push each other away if
you try to bring together their like poles, for example, two north or two south poles. Similarly, the
north pole of the external field will try to push away the north poles of magnetized atoms.
Our magnet creates a very large magnetic field (about 100 to 1000 times larger than school or

household magnets).
In this field, all the atoms inside the frog act as very small magnets creating a field of about 2
Gauss (although very small, such a field can still be detected by a compass). One may say that the
frog is now built up of these tiny magnets all of which are repelled by the large magnet. The force,
which is directed upwards, appears to be strong enough to compensate the force of gravity
(directed downwards) that also acts on every single atom of the frog. So, the frogs atoms do not
feel any force at all and the frog floats as if it were in a spacecraft.