Altermagnetism - a remarkable new discovery about ordinary matter
Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2024 5:01 pm
It is unusual for there to be major new discovery about ordinary matter in this day and age. At least that is how the discovery of altermagnetism is being billed. It is a state of magnetic order in a crystal, as distinct from ferromagnetism, that does not result in a net magnetic field. But the state of order presents useful magnetic properties that can be exploited. The main application people can immediately think of at this early stage of the exploration of the properties of such material would be data storage, as it lacks the interference problems of ferromagnetic data storage, enabling a much denser storage of information.
It seems that the practical potential existence of altermagnetism, and exhibition to some limited extent, was a 2019 discover by Libor Ċ mejkal, et al. As recently as last month, an APS summmary article on the state of play was cautioning that real material with sufficiently extensive and coherent altermagnetic order to be of any practical materiality had yet to be exhibited, and it was far from clear that it could exist. But it seems that in the last few weeks just such a material has been exhibited.
The main substances of current interest are manganese telluride and ruthenium oxide. Ruthenium and tellurium are both of similar abundance in the earth's crust to the noble metals. Indeed, one of the more common natural forms of tellurium is as gold telluride. Ruthenium dioxide is, in principle, a naturally occurring substance, although in practice it is manufactured as a by-product from extraction of the metal from the ore. But manganese telluride, you'd have to have some pretty good hunch about it to even think about trying to make some of that.
It seems that the practical potential existence of altermagnetism, and exhibition to some limited extent, was a 2019 discover by Libor Ċ mejkal, et al. As recently as last month, an APS summmary article on the state of play was cautioning that real material with sufficiently extensive and coherent altermagnetic order to be of any practical materiality had yet to be exhibited, and it was far from clear that it could exist. But it seems that in the last few weeks just such a material has been exhibited.
The main substances of current interest are manganese telluride and ruthenium oxide. Ruthenium and tellurium are both of similar abundance in the earth's crust to the noble metals. Indeed, one of the more common natural forms of tellurium is as gold telluride. Ruthenium dioxide is, in principle, a naturally occurring substance, although in practice it is manufactured as a by-product from extraction of the metal from the ore. But manganese telluride, you'd have to have some pretty good hunch about it to even think about trying to make some of that.