Isophoric News · Sunday, October 18, 2026
Three physicists win Europhysics Prize for establishing altermagnetism as a third form of magnetic order
Jairo Sinova, Libor Šmejkal and Tomas Jungwirth have won the 2026 Europhysics Prize for establishing altermagnetism as a distinct form of magnetic order, according to a Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz release published by ScienceDaily, which says the European Physical Society's Condensed Matter Division selected them. The release says altermagnets, like antiferromagnets, have magnetic moments that cancel and no net magnetization, but their electrons can show properties previously associated with ferromagnets. It says a 2022 symmetry classification identified hundreds of materials that could potentially exhibit it, and that measurements in multiple materials have since supported the new classification. "Even the most mature scientific fields can still hold fundamental surprises," Sinova said in the release.
