You can flip a material’s magnetism on or off just by mixing in its mirror-image twin.
April 3, 2026
Original Paper
Enantiopurity-Controlled Magnetism in a Two-Dimensional Organic-Inorganic Material
arXiv · 2604.01317
The Takeaway
Scientists found that magnetism in certain materials isn't just about what they are made of, but the ratio of 'left-handed' to 'right-handed' molecules. Mixing these mirror images creates a dynamic magnetic state that completely disappears if you use only one version.
From the abstract
Extended solids that combine unpaired electron spin and structural chirality can host unconventional magnetic behaviors with potential for electronic technologies. A versatile strategy for creating chiral solids is incorporation of chiral organic molecules into inorganic crystals. However, such hybrid organic-inorganic materials have so far been examined through the lens of absolute chirality, leaving enantiomeric excess (ee) underexplored as a tuning parameter. Here, we report two-dimensional (