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It is a well known fact that if we break a magnet in two, the resulting both halves will contain a pair of poles each. If we even keep cutting the magnet to an atomic level, the property will by followed. 

However, researchers have reportedly managed to engineer a synthetic monopole and for the first time. 

The magnetic monopole is a particle similar to an electron with a difference that it has a magnetic charge instead electric. In a previous attempt, 80 years ago, Paul Dirac, one of the founders of quantum physics tried to figure out how a monopole could be consistent with the Standard Model. After various attempts, he predicted that a magnetic monopole would leave a small whirlpool trail as it was passed through an electron. 

The prediction was not tested until recently when researchers at Amherst College in Massachusetts and Aalto University in Finland managed to test the behavior in an ultra cold material similar to natural magnetic system. 

Researchers cooled rubidium atoms to a billionth of a degree above absolute zero. Then they extracted one rubidium atom that could act like an electron creating the magnetic field like a monopole by changing the alignment of millions of other accompanying rubidium atoms. In such a composition, each atom acted like a tiny compass needle that pointed slightly in a different way. To establish their findings, they pictured the 'electron' as it interacted with the 'magnetic field.'

"The creation of a synthetic magnetic monopole should provide us with unprecedented insight into aspects of the natural monopole," said Professor David Hall from Amherst College, according to Nation. "It's not every day that you get to poke and prod the analogue of an elusive fundamental particle under highly controlled conditions in the laboratory."

The study is published in the journal Nature.