Scientists have uncovered a previously unknown form of magnetism, fundamentally overturning an understanding of magnetic behavior that had stood unchallenged for more than a century. The discovery, known as altermagnetism, has revealed a third fundamental category of collinear magnetism alongside traditional ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. This milestone breakthrough has opened unprecedented possibilities for quantum materials, advanced electronics, and future computing technologies that could revolutionize modern information systems.
In recognition of this achievement, three physicists responsible for the breakthrough have been named recipients of the prestigious 2026 Europhysics Prize, one of Europe’s highest honors in condensed matter physics. The European Physical Society (EPS) Condensed Matter Division selected Professor Jairo Sinova of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Dr. Libor Šmejkal, and Professor Tomas Jungwirth for their pioneering work establishing altermagnetism as a distinct and fundamental form of magnetic order.
"This award recognizes a fundamental discovery that challenged one of the most established paradigms in condensed matter physics," said Professor Jairo Sinova, Director of the Spin Phenomena Interdisciplinary Center (SPICE) at Mainz University. "Discovering that an entirely new magnetic phase had remained hidden for more than one hundred years demonstrates that even the most mature scientific fields can still hold fundamental surprises."
A Decade of Collaboration Yields a Breakthrough
The remarkable breakthrough emerged from years of close collaboration between Sinova’s research group at Mainz University and Jungwirth’s team at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. Dr. Šmejkal, who also maintained a vital affiliation in Prague, spent eight intensive years at Mainz between 2016 and 2024. During this formative period, he first pursued his doctoral research and later continued working as a postdoctoral scientist within Sinova’s specialized research group.
During those years of theoretical investigation, Šmejkal played a leading role in developing the complex mathematical and physical framework behind altermagnetism. By creatively combining advanced mathematical approaches to symmetry with the principles of spintronics—a rapidly growing field that studies how electron spin can be utilized in electronic devices—the researchers identified a previously unrecognized pattern of magnetic behavior hidden within crystalline structures.
Their theoretical predictions quickly attracted the attention of experimental physics teams around the world. Subsequent measurements of electronic properties and electrical transport across multiple materials provided robust, empirical evidence supporting the new magnetic classification. Since its initial proposition, altermagnetism has grown exponentially to become one of the most active and vibrant areas of condensed matter physics, with dedicated research efforts rapidly expanding across laboratories throughout Europe, North America, and Asia.
A Third Form of Magnetism Rewrites Physics
For more than 100 years, textbooks and research laboratories alike generally divided collinear magnets into two foundational categories: ferromagnets and antiferromagnets.
Ferromagnets are characterized by an overall magnetic alignment that produces a net magnetization, making these materials essential components in many magnetic memory and data storage technologies used throughout modern society. In conventional antiferromagnets, opposing magnetic moments perfectly cancel one another out, leaving no overall net magnetization and producing electronic behaviors vastly different from those observed in ferromagnets.
Altermagnetism introduces a surprising and transformative third possibility that bridges these previously distinct worlds.
Much like traditional antiferromagnets, altermagnets possess internal magnetic moments that cancel each other out, resulting in no net external magnetization. However, unlike conventional antiferromagnets, their electrons can exhibit unique properties and momentum-dependent spin splitting previously associated exclusively with ferromagnets.
This unusual combination allows altermagnets to support electrical currents characterized by strongly polarized electron spins while simultaneously displaying extremely rapid magnetic dynamics. Those distinct physical characteristics could make them exceptionally valuable for developing a new generation of spintronic devices, potentially advancing both the operational speed and processing capabilities of future information and computing technologies.
The scientific significance of this discovery extends far beyond electronics and device engineering. Altermagnetism represents a previously unrecognized symmetry class of matter, revealing profound and unexpected connections to several major areas of modern physics. These include topological phenomena, unconventional superconductivity, and complex quantum materials characterized by strong interactions between individual electrons.
How Scientists Uncovered Altermagnetism
The winding path toward this historic discovery began with theoretical investigations into unusual ways that electricity moves through magnetic materials. Among the early conceptual advances was the prediction of the crystal anomalous Hall effect, a complex phenomenon involving electrical transport properties in specific crystal structures.
Initially, these unexpected behavioral anomalies might have easily appeared to be isolated quirks or unusual features of individual, highly specific materials. However, the researchers eventually recognized through persistent analysis that these phenomena were actually interconnected by a much broader, underlying principle involving the intrinsic symmetries of electron spins.
Rather than representing rare, isolated exceptions to established magnetic behavior, these materials were signaling the existence of an entirely different and overlooked magnetic category.
A major milestone in the journey arrived in 2022, when the collaborative research team published a comprehensive symmetry classification of altermagnetism. In that landmark publication, they successfully identified hundreds of existing and hypothetical materials that could potentially exhibit this unique form of magnetic order.
Experimental physicists subsequently put these theoretical predictions to the test using several complementary, cutting-edge methods. These included angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), a sophisticated technique that reveals precisely how electrons behave inside materials, alongside precise measurements of electrical transport and conductivity.
The empirical results definitively confirmed altermagnetic behavior in several key materials, helping solidify the new classification within the broader scientific community.
Interest in the discovery has since expanded at an extraordinary pace. Hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers have been published within just a few years, and altermagnetism has swiftly become a prominent, highly anticipated subject at major international physics conferences. The rapidly growing global research community is now actively investigating both its fundamental physical properties and its wide-ranging potential technological applications.
Discovery Earns Prestigious 2026 Europhysics Prize
The Europhysics Prize recognizes major, transformative advances in condensed matter physics, a vast field concerned with understanding the physical properties and complex collective behavior of matter. Established in 1975 by the European Physical Society, the prestigious award honors specific discoveries that have significantly advanced scientific understanding, with a substantial share of the recognized research historically conducted within European institutions.
The 2026 prize specifically honors the groundbreaking theoretical and experimental advances that successfully established altermagnetism as a new fundamental form of collinear magnetic order.
The formal award ceremony was scheduled to take place in September 2026 at the 32nd General Conference of the European Physical Society Condensed Matter Division (CMD32) in Graz, Austria, bringing together leading physicists from around the globe to celebrate the milestone.
The Scientists Behind the Breakthrough
Professor Jairo Sinova is a distinguished professor of physics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany, where he also serves as director of the university’s Spin Phenomena Interdisciplinary Center. His extensive research career has focused heavily on magnetism, spintronics, and the physics of advanced quantum materials.
Dr. Libor Šmejkal conducted much of the crucial theoretical work that led directly to the identification of altermagnetism during his tenure at Mainz University from 2016 to 2024. His current professional affiliations include the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, and the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Professor Tomas Jungwirth is affiliated with the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences as well as the University of Nottingham. He has collaborated extensively and fruitfully with Sinova’s research team at Mainz, playing a central, guiding role in establishing the rigorous theoretical foundations of altermagnetism.
Together, the collaborative efforts of these researchers have revealed a fundamental property of magnetic matter that successfully escaped human recognition for more than a century, opening an entirely unprecedented direction for research into quantum physics and future electronic technologies.
