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Scientists Just Discovered a New Type of Magnetism

In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align.

In 1966, the Japanese physicist Yosuke Nagaoka conceived of a type of magnetism produced by a seemingly unnatural dance of electrons within a hypothetical material. İmamoğlu and his colleagues had an inkling that they could create Nagaoka magnetism by experimenting with single-layer sheets of atoms that could be stacked together to form an intricate moiré pattern (pronounced mwah-ray). But according to the team’s theoretical work— published in Physical Review Research in June ahead of the experimental results—that difference comes down to the geometric quirks of the triangular lattice that they used versus the square one in Nagaoka’s calculations.

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