{"id":235393,"date":"2026-04-16T22:23:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T03:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/confirming-altermagnetism-in-an-abundant-mineral"},"modified":"2026-04-16T22:23:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T03:23:00","slug":"confirming-altermagnetism-in-an-abundant-mineral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/confirming-altermagnetism-in-an-abundant-mineral","title":{"rendered":"Confirming altermagnetism in an abundant mineral"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/confirming-altermagnetism-in-an-abundant-mineral2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Also known as magnetoelectronics, spintronics rely on electron spin rather than electron charge, as found in traditional electronics. Although spintronics is still an emerging field, spintronic technologies are already found in hard disk drives and giant magnetoresistance sensors used in industrial and automotive applications. Once the right foundational materials are discovered and verified, including economical materials for altermagnets, spintronics could advance technologies from wireless communication to quantum computing.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers using neutrons at the Department of Energy\u2019s Oak Ridge National Laboratory\u2019s Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) discovered that hematite, essentially rust, can help design energy-efficient spintronics.<\/p>\n<p>The team\u2019s findings, <a href=\"https:\/\/link.aps.org\/doi\/10.1103\/7yhz-jptc\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Physical Review Letters<\/i>, confirmed a key signature of altermagnetism (a new type of magnetism discovered in 2022) in hematite. Altermagnets are magnetic materials in which electron spins align in opposite directions, allowing pure spin currents to flow without a net electric charge\u2014ideal conditions for spintronics. The team measured spin waves, which move through a material\u2019s magnetic order similar to how sound waves move through air. They discovered that these waves show a clear <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-04-earth-abundant-mineral-sustainable-spintronics.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">separation in energy<\/a>, a unique signature that confirms the material\u2019s altermagnetic nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Also known as magnetoelectronics, spintronics rely on electron spin rather than electron charge, as found in traditional electronics. Although spintronics is still an emerging field, spintronic technologies are already found in hard disk drives and giant magnetoresistance sensors used in industrial and automotive applications. Once the right foundational materials are discovered and verified, including economical [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}