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European Physical Society Awards 2026 Europhysics Prize for Discovery of Altermagnetism

The EPS honored Jairo Sinova, Libor Šmejkal, and Tomas Jungwirth for identifying altermagnetism, a third fundamental class of magnetism.

Science & Research Physics
physics altermagnetism condensed matter physics materials science spintronics
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Overview

The European Physical Society (EPS) has awarded its 2026 Europhysics Prize to physicists Jairo Sinova, Libor Šmejkal, and Tomas Jungwirth for discovering altermagnetism, a third fundamental class of magnetism that had gone unrecognized for over a century, according to the European Physical Society. The prize, presented by the EPS Condensed Matter Division, credits the trio with identifying a magnetic phase that combines properties of ferromagnets and antiferromagnets long thought to be mutually exclusive, according to Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU).

What We Know

  • The 2026 Europhysics Prize of the EPS Condensed Matter Division goes to Professor Jairo Sinova of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Dr. Libor Šmejkal, and Professor Tomas Jungwirth for their discovery of altermagnetism, according to JGU.
  • Altermagnetism is described by the European Physical Society as “a third distinct elementary magnetic phase, one that combines seemingly incompatible properties of both ferromagnets and antiferromagnets whilst exhibiting entirely different quantum phenomena.”
  • In 2022, the researchers introduced a complete symmetry classification of altermagnetism, and their framework identified more than 200 candidate materials, according to the European Physical Society, with JGU noting the same 2022 classification work.
  • Experimental groups worldwide have since confirmed altermagnetism using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and electrical transport measurements, according to JGU, with the European Physical Society citing direct observations of the characteristic electronic structure in materials including MnTe and CrSb.
  • The original papers have inspired more than a thousand subsequent studies across magnetism, superconductivity, quantum materials, and materials science, according to the European Physical Society.
  • Sinova, director of the Spin Phenomena Interdisciplinary Center (SPICE) at JGU, said in a statement: “This award recognizes a fundamental discovery that challenged one of the most established paradigms in condensed matter physics. Discovering that an entirely new magnetic phase had remained hidden for more than one hundred years demonstrates that even the most mature scientific fields can still hold fundamental surprises,” according to JGU.
  • Šmejkal carried out the decisive theoretical work while at JGU Mainz from 2016 to 2024 and is now affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, and the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, according to JGU.
  • Sinova is also affiliated with Texas A&M University in the United States, while Jungwirth is based at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the University of Nottingham in the UK, and Tohoku University in Japan, according to the European Physical Society.
  • The prize will be presented on September 22, 2026, during the Awards Session of the 32nd General Conference of the EPS Condensed Matter Division (CMD32) in Graz, Austria, according to the European Physical Society. The Europhysics Prize has been awarded since 1975, and this is its 42nd edition, per the same announcement.
  • The discovery’s proposed applications include ultrafast and energy-efficient computer memories, with potential relevance to high-performance computing and AI hardware, because altermagnets generate strong spin-polarized currents while operating at ultrafast terahertz frequencies, according to the European Physical Society.
  • Phys.org independently confirmed the prize, the three laureates, and the September 2026 CMD32 presentation in Graz.

What We Don’t Know

  • Neither the EPS nor JGU disclosed a monetary value for the prize.
  • The full scope of near-term commercial applications for altermagnetic materials in computing hardware remains unproven; the announcements describe potential rather than deployed technology.

Analysis

For most of the twentieth century, condensed matter physics recognized only two basic types of ordered magnetism: ferromagnetism, in which electron spins align to produce a net magnetic field, and antiferromagnetism, in which spins alternate and cancel out. The EPS prize citation frames altermagnetism as an addition to that textbook picture rather than a replacement, noting the new phase carries zero net magnetization like an antiferromagnet while still exhibiting the strongly spin-polarized electronic states associated with ferromagnets — a pairing the European Physical Society says had been “considered for a century as mutually exclusive.” The rapid pace from theoretical classification in 2022 to experimental confirmation in materials such as MnTe and CrSb, and on to more than a thousand follow-up studies, is presented by the prize committee as evidence of how quickly the finding reshaped an established subfield of physics.