Rice Researchers Find 2-Nanometer RuO2 Turns Magnetic Under Strain

1 articles · Updated · The Brighter Side of News · Aug 9

Ultrathin RuO2 films about 2 nanometers thick showed spin textures consistent with unconventional magnetism, even though bulk ruthenium dioxide has shown little clear magnetic behavior.
Growth on titanium dioxide imposed lattice strain that altered the film’s electronic structure, pointing to strain as a possible control knob for inducing or tuning altermagnetism-like behavior.
Spin-resolved angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, backed by theoretical calculations, identified spin patterns linked to broken time-reversal symmetry under the team’s experimental conditions.
The result could aid spintronics and next-generation RAM by offering a route to faster, smaller and more energy-efficient memory, though researchers still need to test stability, temperature behavior and device control.