Neutron experiments have uncovered an unexpected connection between magnetic structure and electrical behavior.
A gentle squeeze can change the magnetic structure of certain crystals and alter their electrical behavior. Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) demonstrated this effect in altermagnets, an emerging class of magnetic materials being investigated for advanced electronics.
Using neutron beams to examine the materials at the atomic scale, the researchers found that mechanical strain could shift their magnetic organization and influence an electrical response associated with electron transport. The findings, published in back-to-back papers in Physical Review X and Advanced Materials, point to a possible method for controlling magnetic properties without altering a material’s chemical composition.
How a Small Squeeze Changes Magnetic Behavior
The researchers placed tiny crystals of manganese telluride and iron sulfide between two titanium plates and applied mechanical pressure. They then used neutron diffraction at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source to investigate how the strain affected magnetic domains, regions within a material that have different orientations of magnetic order.
The measurements showed that squeezing the crystals changed the relative populations of these domains. The researchers also detected changes in the anomalous Hall effect, an electrical response that produces a voltage perpendicular to the direction of an applied current. Together, the results connect changes in magnetic domain organization with changes in electrical transport behavior.
“By controlling the magnetic domains, we can directly influence the transport behavior, and that opens the door to exploring these materials for spintronic technologies,” said Pengcheng Dai of Rice University, a former neutron scientist at ORNL.
A New Approach to Controlling Spintronic Materials
Altermagnets are attracting research interest because their unusual magnetic properties could support spintronics, a technology that uses electron spin alongside electrical charge to store and process information. Conventional electronics relies on electron charge, while spintronics could provide additional ways to control information in electronic devices.
Developing practical spintronic technologies requires materials whose magnetic and electronic properties can be reliably manipulated. Altermagnets are among the candidates being explored for potential applications ranging from wireless communications to quantum computing. The ORNL experiments suggest that mechanical strain could offer another way to adjust these properties, although translating the findings into working devices will require further research.
“What’s exciting is that one creative experimental idea — a small mechanical squeeze between two plates — can reveal entirely new magnetic behavior and push the field forward, and neutron scattering plays such a critical role, revealing the underlying change in magnetism,” said Feng Ye, an ORNL neutron scientist and co-author of both studies.
References:
“Uniaxial Strain Tuned Magnetism of the Altermagnet Candidate H-FeS” by Weiliang Yao, Feng Ye, Zachary J. Morgan, Douglas L. Abernathy, Ruixian Liu, Sijie Xu, Yuxiang Gao, Kevin Allen, Yuan Fang, Emilia Morosan, Qimiao Si and Pengcheng Dai, 6 August 2026, Advanced Materials.
DOI: 10.1002/adma.74398
“Strain-Tunable Anomalous Hall Effect in Hexagonal MnTe” by Zhaoyu Liu, Sijie Xu, Jonathan M. DeStefano, Elliott Rosenberg, Tingjun Zhang, Jinyulin Li, Matthew B. Stone, Feng Ye, Wei Tian, Sarah Edwards, Rong Cong, Siyu Pan, Ching-Wu Chu, Liangzi Deng, Emilia Morosan, Rafael M. Fernandes, Jiun-Haw Chu and Pengcheng Dai, 11 August 2026, Physical Review X.
DOI: 10.1103/589s-s1yy
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