[foven]

This is not really as simple as just going through the permutations. What this is in practice is a triumph of instrumentation. Before this, no one has imaged altermagnetic domain structure. The behaviour of these materials is intrinsically linked to what happens in the micro- (or nano-) structure.

There are two challenging things here that makes this a discovery. One, making the material, which is extremely difficult to verify as altermagnetic due to the nature of measuring these materials. Two, the measurement, which combines two techniques to distinguish this as separate from antiferromagnetism.

It is a huge push forwards for the budding field since it provides a really nice way to go to a large-scale synchrotron with your altermagnet and study it in detail.

[ganzuul]

Oh, okay I think I understand.

This would have to scale down to the quantum domain to be an actual thing and scaling back up means we bring non-commutative physics into the classical world.