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Altermagnets: The first new type of magnet in nearly a century
Researchers have found the first new type of magnet in nearly a century. Now, these strange "altermagnets" could help us build an entirely new type of computer
The mental model of imagining tiny arrows pointing up and down inside magnets was invented by physicist Louis Néel, who theorised the first antiferromagnets – which were experimentally confirmed in the decades following – and who won a share of the 1970 Nobel prize in physics. “This unique combination of features from altermagnets — no net magnetisation, but still spin-split bands — could be very advantageous for potential spintronic devices,” said Igor Mazin, a physicist at George Mason University in Virginia. What’s more, a trio of researchers at the Beijing Institute of Technology in China realised that you can also create the right internal magnetic disturbances by stacking an antiferromagnet between layers of a different material, like a sandwich.
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