An international research team led by the US Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has obtained compelling evidence for the existence of altermagnetism, a third fundamental type of magnetism. The findings were published in the prestigious scientific journal Science, infohub.kz reports.
For nearly 90 years, the scientific world divided magnetic materials into just two categories: ferromagnets, in which electron spins point in the same direction, and antiferromagnets, in which oppositely oriented spins cancel out each other's magnetic field. The new state of matter combines the valuable properties of both earlier classes, remaining stable while carrying spin currents.
The researchers chose manganese telluride as their subject, a material long classified as an ordinary antiferromagnet. The experiments were conducted in France on the ID32 beamline at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility using polarized X-rays.
The scientists found that the crystal lattice around opposing spins is mutually rotated, creating chirality, a mirror asymmetry in the magnetic structure. The material scattered left- and right-circularly polarized beams differently, unambiguously placing it in a new class. Repeat tests in 2025 fully reproduced the effect.
The discovery solves a long-standing problem in spintronics: altermagnets are resistant to external interference while also being able to generate spin-polarized currents for reading data. In the future, this could speed up the operation of chips and data centers.