{"id":239297,"date":"2026-06-19T02:23:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T07:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/how-to-train-your-magnet-excitons-as-a-new-knob-for-magnetic-control"},"modified":"2026-06-19T02:23:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T07:23:03","slug":"how-to-train-your-magnet-excitons-as-a-new-knob-for-magnetic-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/how-to-train-your-magnet-excitons-as-a-new-knob-for-magnetic-control","title":{"rendered":"How to train your magnet: Excitons as a new knob for magnetic control"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/how-to-train-your-magnet-excitons-as-a-new-knob-for-magnetic-control.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists can learn a lot about a quantum material by watching how it responds to light. In magnetic semiconductors, one especially useful messenger is the exciton: a pairing of a negatively charged electron and the positively charged \u201chole\u201d it leaves behind. Until now, excitons in magnetic materials have mostly been used as reporters. They could reveal how spins were arranged or how magnetic waves moved through a material. But Cornell researchers have shown that excitons can do more than observe magnetism. They can actively steer it.<\/p>\n<p>In the paper \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-02-natural-magnetic-materials-unprecedented-ways.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">Excitonic Spin Torque<\/a> in a Magnetic Semiconductor,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41563-026-02643-1\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> June 15 in <i>Nature Materials<\/i>, Youn Jue (Eunice) Bae, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and colleagues report that excitons created by light can exert a spin torque in the two-dimensional magnetic semiconductor chromium sulfide bromide, or CrSBr. The finding establishes excitons as a new way to control magnetic motion with light.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExcitons have been very useful for watching what spins are doing in magnetic materials,\u201d Bae said. \u201cWhat we show here is that excitons can also act back on the spins. They are not just spectators; they can help drive the magnetic motion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists can learn a lot about a quantum material by watching how it responds to light. In magnetic semiconductors, one especially useful messenger is the exciton: a pairing of a negatively charged electron and the positively charged \u201chole\u201d it leaves behind. Until now, excitons in magnetic materials have mostly been used as reporters. They could [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-chemistry","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239297","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=239297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}