An international team led by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has presented compelling experimental evidence for a third type of magnetism — altermagnetism. The study was published in the journal Science on 29 October 2026.
For nearly 90 years, physicists believed that spontaneous magnetism was divided into only two classes: ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. In ferromagnets, electron spins align in a single direction, creating a noticeable magnetic field. In antiferromagnets, neighboring spins point in opposite directions and cancel each other out.
Altermagnets combine features of both: zero net magnetization, as in antiferromagnets, and the ability to generate spin-polarized currents, characteristic of ferromagnets. The key to the distinction is the rotation of the crystal lattice around oppositely oriented spins, which breaks symmetry.
The scientists focused on manganese telluride (MnTe), which for decades had been considered an ordinary antiferromagnet. Using resonant inelastic X-ray scattering with circular dichroism at the European Synchrotron ESRF, they detected a distinct chiral signal.
This signal could not have appeared in a classical antiferromagnet. The experiment was first conducted in 2024, and at the beginning of 2025 it was repeated — the results matched.
"In recent years, scientists have observed phenomena that do not fit into the ferromagnetism-antiferromagnetism dichotomy," noted lead author Daniel Jost of SLAC and the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences. "Our results provide robust experimental confirmation that the third phase — altermagnetism — is real."
The discovery, first proposed theoretically in 2022, opens the way to new materials for spintronics. Altermagnets are resistant to external fields and at the same time make it possible to control spin currents without the losses inherent in ferromagnets.
The work was carried out in collaboration with the European Synchrotron, Stanford University and other institutes. It strengthens the position of altermagnetism as an independent branch of magnetic phenomena.
The discovery of altermagnetism is often called the "Holy Grail" of modern condensed matter physics, since it combines the best properties of the two classical types of magnetism while eliminating their main drawbacks.
Put quite simply, altermagnetism is an "invisible magnet." It works super-fast, like an ordinary magnet in a hard drive, but it does not create a magnetic field around itself and hardly heats up.
Here is where the ordinary person will really feel it in the next 5–10 years:
- Smartphones and laptops that do not heat up or run out of chargeThe new memory will store data even with the power completely off (like a flash drive), but operate at the breakneck speed of RAM.The result: the phone turns on in a fraction of a second, never "freezes" and holds a charge 2–3 times longer.
- Powerful AI right in your pocketModern neural networks put a heavy load on the processor and drain the battery. Chips based on altermagnets process data with almost no heat generation.The result: smart assistants, translators and games will work instantly and locally, without sending data to the cloud or overheating the device.
- Reliable electric vehicles and dronesOrdinary electronics can "glitch" near powerful motors or power lines due to magnetic interference. Altermagnetic sensors are immune to this.The result: autopilots and drone control systems will become much safer and more precise.
- Medicine and wearable gadgetsSensors in smartwatches or medical scanners (like MRI) will become more compact, cheaper and more precise, because their readings will not be thrown off by external magnetic fields.
In short, this is a technology that will eliminate the main pains of modern electronics — overheating, slow operation and rapid battery drain. It will be a few more years before it reaches mass-market shelves, but the foundation for this is being laid right now.
