Scientists confirm a third type of magnetism
Altermagnetism combines antiferromagnet-like stability with spin currents useful for electronics.
For nearly 90 years, magnetism fit into two boxes. An X-ray experiment has just closed the third.
A team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory published in Science strong evidence for altermagnetism, a magnetic phase distinct from ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. The material studied was manganese telluride (MnTe), long classified as a conventional antiferromagnet.
In a ferromagnet, electron spins point the same way and create a net magnetic field. In an antiferromagnet, they alternate and cancel. Altermagnets also alternate spins and have no net magnetization, but the crystal lattice around those spins is rotated: that breaks a symmetry and allows spin-polarized currents, useful for reading and writing information.
The missing piece was chirality, a magnetic "handedness." At Europe's ESRF synchrotron, with circularly polarized X-rays, MnTe scattered left- and right-handed light differently: the signature expected for altermagnetism. The authors repeated the experiment in 2024 and 2025.
In spintronics, ferromagnets are sensitive to external fields and antiferromagnets are hard to read. Altermagnets promise stability and usable spin currents: more robust memory, more efficient data centers and possible quantum devices. Researchers still need to learn how to manipulate those states with external stimuli before real chips appear.
Key facts
- Published in Science (2026).
- Key material: manganese telluride (MnTe).
- The term "altermagnet" was proposed in 2022.
- Measurements on ESRF beamline ID32 in France.
The next challenge is controlling those states with light and electricity so they can reach real devices.
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