The team directly observed a unique property in an altermagnetic candidate material, delivering key evidence of a new phase of magnetism first postulated in 2022.
Key takeaways:
- The scientific case for a third type of magnetism – termed “altermagnetism” – has been building over recent years.
- Now, a SLAC-led team has experimentally proven that a material exhibits characteristics that are theoretically impossible to explain without altermagnetism.
- Altermagnetic materials could be used to design advanced electronics, with applications including quantum technologies, memory devices and data centers.
For decades, physicists recognized only two types of magnetism that occur in materials without external influence: ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. Today, in findings published in Science, a team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has delivered conclusive experimental proof of a third magnetic phase called altermagnetism.
“In the past few years, scientists have observed phenomena that don't fit neatly into the ferromagnetism-antiferromagnetism dichotomy,” explained lead author Daniel Jost, associate scientist at SLAC and Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences. “Researchers have been compiling evidence of a third…