In everyday magnets, like the ones on your fridge, the atoms inside align their magnetic moments in the same direction, creating a strong overall magnetic field. These materials, known as ferromagnets, are effective but can easily be influenced by external magnetic fields.
In contrast, antiferromagnets have a different structure — their atomic spins alternate in an up-down pattern, canceling each other out and resulting in no overall magnetization. This makes them highly resistant to outside magnetic interference, which could be useful for building more stable and interference-resistant memory chips. However, a major challenge has been finding a reliable way to switch their magnetic states to make them practical for real-world applications.
In a recent study published in the journal Nature, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter and MIT used terahertz light to control and switch an antiferromagnet into a new magnetic state. This breakthrough demonstrates the potential of antiferromagnetic materials for future memory chips that could store and process more data, use less energy, and take up less space.
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