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Condensed matter physics: intrinsic magnetism emerges in graphene quantum dots A local magetic moment emerges in nanoscale high purity graphene quantum dots, probably resulting from edge passivation. A team led by Nujiang Tang at Nanjing University synthesized high purity graphene quantum dots with an average diameter of about 2.04 nm and average height of about 0.52 nm. They found that a local moment of 1.2 µB were carried by spin polarized edge state appearing in a small number of quantum dots at 2K, with the likely origin from hydroxyl passivation on carbon. The majority dots are nonmagnetic due to the suppression of edge magnetism by defects or reconstruction at the edge. These results may provide insights into the intrinsic magnetism of graphene quantum dots and pave a way towards edge magnetism by various chemical passivation.