Slashdot Summary
An international research team has for the first time imaged and controlled a type of magnetic flow called altermagnetism, which physicists say could be used to develop faster and more reliable electronic devices. Financial Times:
A groundbreaking experiment at a powerful X-ray microscope in Sweden provides direct proof of the existence of altermagnetism, according to a paper published in Nature on Wednesday. Altermagnetic materials can sustain magnetic activity without themselves being magnetic.
The team from the UK’s Nottingham university that led the research said the discovery has revolutionary potential for the electronics industry. “Altermagnets have the potential to lead to a thousand-fold increase in the speed of microelectronic components and digital memory, while being more robust and energy-efficient,” said senior author Peter Wadley, Royal Society research fellow at Nottingham.
Hard disks and other components underpinning the modern computers industry process data in ferromagnetic materials, whose intrinsic magnetism limits their speed and packing density. Using altermagnetic materials will allow current to flow in non-magnetic products.
Archived at https://archive.ph/Fk7xv
What does it mean to sustain magnetic activity without being magnetic? What defines magnetic activity?
The material itself cannot be magnetized, which is what they mean by not “being magnetic”. However, these do have spin currents that can be measured and controlled, so they sustain “magnetic activity”. Kind of like a hybrid between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic.
you mean like eddy currents?
Hmm, interesting. Thanks!