Altermagnetic materials and how you can also design them
Marc Vila, ICN2, Spain
Wednesday, 21 October 2026, 2 PM
Sala d'Actes MATGAS
Abstract
The topic of altermagnets, a recently discovered magnetic phase distinct from ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, has recently gained tremendous attention for the new physics present in these magnetic materials, as well as their potential impact in nextgeneration, low-power electronics. Altermagnetism is ubiquitous in nature, encompassing many types of materials: from simple metals and insulators to multiferroics, perovskites, superconductors and even metal-organic frameworks. While their unique properties can be understood in terms of group theory, in this talk, I will explain how one can also describe these materials with a language more commonly used by solid state physicists and material scientists, like the nature of chemical bonds, crystal field distortions and orbital hybridizations. I will show how my work in developing intuitive theoretical models can give us invaluable insights into how the electronic degrees of freedom – charge, spin, orbital and lattice – intertwine with each other in altermagnets. Such insights not only allow us to understand these materials in a very transparent way, but also predict unique phenomena, including signatures in magneto-optical experiments. Importantly, I will demonstrate that these models can be applied to more complex materials, as verified by first principles calculations and experiments, thus bringing the physics we learned from minimal models to real materials. Finally, I will also show how we can utilize this knowledge to design and engineer altermagnetism in more complex systems such as domain walls of multiferroic materials.
Short bio
Dr. Marc Vila is a Beatriu de Pinós and Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at ICN2, in the group of ICREA Research Prof. Stephan Roche. His research focuses on spintronics, quantum transport, topology, spin-orbit coupling phenomena in quantum materials, including altermagnets. After completing his PhD at ICN2, he moved to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher working with Prof. Joel Moore and staff scientist Dr. Sinéad Griffin. There, amongst other topics, he became interested in altermagnetism and studied its microscopic understanding and application from the materials science point of view.
Hosted by Gervasi Herranz and Can Onur Avci, from the MULFOXresearch group (Materials for Electronics Research Line)
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