Physicists have uncovered a hidden third form of magnetism that challenges more than 100 years of established physics. Called altermagnetism, the discovery could transform future computing and electronics while opening an entirely new frontier in quantum research.
Here’s the bit that sort of explains things:
"For more than 100 years, physicists generally divided collinear magnets into two fundamental categories: ferromagnets and antiferromagnets.
Ferromagnets have an overall magnetic alignment that produces a net magnetization. These materials are essential to many magnetic memory technologies used today. In conventional antiferromagnets, opposing magnetic moments cancel one another, leaving no overall magnetization and producing electronic behavior very different from that of ferromagnets.
Altermagnetism introduces a surprising third possibility.
Like antiferromagnets, altermagnets have magnetic moments that cancel out, resulting in no net magnetization. However, their electrons can exhibit properties previously associated with ferromagnets.
This unusual combination allows altermagnets to support electrical currents with strongly polarized electron spins while also displaying extremely rapid magnetic dynamics. Those characteristics could make them valuable for a new generation of spintronic devices, potentially advancing the speed and capabilities of future information technologies."
So not a third form of magnetism but a third form of magnets.
Basically a semiconductor for magnetism.
Yeah. I was confused for moment. Wait they found third field in addition to the electric and magnetic fields? Like that would be “throw Einstein out the window” level change.
Specifically they called it a “phase” here, so not another field, more akin to like a new way a magnet can behave (i think)
Sure, that sounds like a pretty good analogy, but it didn’t read as if you could program these? I just wonder more specifically what they do to the polarisation at what points. Could we make logic gates that practically require no power?
Pretty sure i’ve read something similiar once, about surface waves in the outermost electron layer. They even built logic gates. Minus point was the relative large structure size for it to work, plus point that it requires next to no power. No clue what happened with it.
Became sentient probably
I want to understand this but I am not well educated here. So forgive my question, all I know about magnets is that opposite poles attract. Usually its called north pole and south pole or something, positive and negative poles.
Is that what is being called Antiferromagnets and Ferromagnets?
Ferromagnets have many molecule level magnets which align poles with other fields and antiferromagnets have opposing molecular magnets which cause all magnetic interaction to cancel out to zero.
So they’re names of pole alignment types.
Not quite. Best I can gather is the material is different (ferrous material implies iron, but I think this describes the behavior, not the constituent parts).
I think that’s right, but maybe I’m annoingly wrong enough to elicite a smarter person to correct me 🫣
Oh, I thought they had discovered magnetic colors: a magnetic field that only interacted with another field of the same color, allowing the same region of magnetic tape to hold orders of magnitude more bits of information.