Scientists Discover 'Altermagnets' Hidden in Plain Sight

Scientists just discovered a brand new type of magnet that's been hiding in materials we've studied for decades, and it could transform how we store data and power the next generation of computers.

At MIT last fall, graduate student Jiaruo Li was building a data storage device using an exotic kind of magnetism her lab discovered just months before. She was working with nickel bromide, a cousin of nickel iodide, which made headlines in 2025 for displaying something called p-wave magnetism. These materials are part of a revolutionary new class called altermagnets.

What makes altermagnets so special? They combine properties that scientists thought couldn't exist together, and their behavior comes down to simple geometry.

For context, the magnets on your fridge are ferromagnets, used since prehistoric times but only understood after quantum mechanics emerged in the 1920s. In the 1930s, physicist Louis Néel predicted antiferromagnets, where electron spins alternate up-down-up instead of all pointing the same direction. He won the 1970 Nobel Prize when experiments proved him right, though he thought they'd have no practical use.

Altermagnets change everything. They can adjust electrical resistance in materials, making them perfect for faster, more energy efficient data storage. This matters enormously right now as AI drives explosive growth in data centers and their massive power demands.

The Ripple Effect

The discovery has scientists rethinking the fundamental physics of magnetism. Many altermagnets were compounds researchers had examined for years without recognizing their unique magnetic properties. It's like finding out your neighbor has been a superhero all along.

Li's work at MIT shows how quickly this science is moving from theory to practical application. After growing crystals by baking nickel bromide powder for 10 days at high temperatures, she searches for atomically thin flakes perfect for her devices. Out of thousands of tiny golden crystals on her silicon wafer, only one or two will be thin enough to work.

The implications extend far beyond better hard drives. Jairo Sinova, a physics professor at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz who helped discover altermagnets, points out that most cloud data lives on magnetic storage. "All of your data are stored in the cloud, and the cloud is all magnets," he says.

As data demands skyrocket, altermagnets offer a path forward that doesn't require building ever more power-hungry data centers.

These hidden magnetic superpowers were there all along, waiting for scientists to look at familiar materials in a new way and unlock their potential to power our future more efficiently.