Prize honors discovery of altermagnetism as a third fundamental class of magnetism Robert Egan Senior Editor One of Europe's highest distinctions in condensed matter physics has been awarded for a discovery that is reshaping our understanding of magnetism: The 2026 Europhysics Prize of the European Physical Society (EPS) Condensed Matter Division goes to Professor Jairo Sinova of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Dr. Libor Šmejkal and Professor Tomas Jungwirth for their discovery of altermagnetism—a previously unknown fundamental class of magnetism. The prize recognizes their work establishing that nature hosts a third elementary form of collinear magnetism in addition to ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism.

The discovery overturns a century-old understanding of magnetic order and has opened an entirely new research field with major implications for quantum materials, condensed matter physics and future information technologies. "This award recognizes a fundamental discovery that challenged one of the most established paradigms in condensed matter physics," said 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 100 years demonstrates that even the most mature scientific fields can still hold fundamental surprises." The long-established partnership between Sinova's team at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Jungwirth's group at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague played a central role in the development of altermagnetism.

While jointly affiliated with Prague, Šmejkal worked in Mainz from 2016 until 2024, first as a doctoral researcher and later as a postdoctoral scientist in Sinova's research group. During these eight years at JGU, he led the development of many of the theoretical concepts that ultimately culminated in the discovery of altermagnetism. The team combined modern symmetry theory with spintronics to reveal a fundamentally new type of magnetic order.

Their theoretical predictions rapidly inspired experimental confirmations around the world, including spectroscopic and transport observations in several materials. Today, altermagnetism has become one of the fastest-growing research areas in condensed matter physics, with research programs now spanning Europe, North America and Asia. Rewriting physics textbooks For over a century, physicists assumed that all collinear magnets belonged to one of two categories.

Ferromagnets possess a net magnetization and are the foundation of modern magnetic memory technologies. Conventional antiferromagnets, while magnetically compensated, exhibit fundamentally different electronic properties. The discovery of altermagnetism revealed a third possibility: materials that possess no net magnetization like antiferromagnets while simultaneously exhibiting electronic properties previously thought exclusive to ferromagnets.

This unique combination enables highly spin-polarized electrical currents together with ultrafast magnetic dynamics, making altermagnets attractive candidates for next-generation spintronic devices.