Applying pressure to a weird new kind of magnet turns it into a lossless conductor of electricity.
April 15, 2026
Original Paper
Pressure-Induced Superconducting-like Transition in the d-wave Altermagnet Candidate CsV2Se2O
arXiv · 2604.09457
The Takeaway
Scientists just discovered that "altermagnets"—a strange, third class of magnetism only recently identified—can be forced into a superconducting state. By squeezing a specific material (CsV2Se2O), they crushed its insulating properties and watched it start conducting electricity with zero resistance below 3 K. This is a huge deal because magnetism and superconductivity are usually bitter enemies that destroy each other. Finding a way to make them coexist in an altermagnet challenges our entire understanding of how electrons behave in solids. It opens the door to a future where we could use these materials to build hyper-efficient computers that don't generate any heat.
From the abstract
Altermagnetism generates exchange-type spin splitting without net magnetization and, in its $\it d$-wave form, resembles the angular symmetry of unconventional $\it d$-wave superconductivity. Whether this correspondence bears directly on superconducting instabilities in real correlated materials remains open. Here we study the quasi-two-dimensional vanadium oxychalcogenide CsV$_2$Se$_2$O (CVSO), a square-net $\it d$-wave altermagnet candidate, through combined experimental and theoretical invest