Shanghai, June 26, 2025 – One of the most innovative events in the international scientific community has just concluded at Shanghai University: Workshop on Altermagnets and School on Magnetic Symmetry, dedicated to a rapidly emerging frontier in condensed matter physics — altermagnetism. This was not just another academic conference, but a landmark global summit that brought together leading researchers from around the world between June 23 and 26.
At the heart of the event was a major science breakthrough of 2024: altermagnets, a new class of magnetic materials that unify features of both ferromagnets and antiferromagnets. Their unique properties open the door to revolutionary applications in next-generation electronics, spintronics, and possibly quantum computing.
The Italian physicist Dr. Alessandro Stroppa, Research Director at the CNR-SPIN Institute in L’Aquila (Italy), and Prof. Wei Ren from Shanghai University played central roles in organizing this initiative. Together with Prof. Qihang Liu (Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen), Prof. Sang Cheong (Rutgers University, USA), Prof. Cheng Tang (Shanghai University), and Dr. Michele Reticcioli (CNR-SPIN), they co-led the scientific direction of the event.
Dr. Stroppa's contributions went far beyond organizational leadership - as co-founder with Professor Ren of the SHU-SPIN International Schools series, he has been instrumental in building a lasting bridge between Italian and Chinese research communities. Their initiative has created a unique platform for cutting-edge scientific exchange, consistently tackling frontier topics like advanced electronic structure theory, magnetic symmetry analysis, and computational materials design. This year's workshop on altermagnetism represents both the culmination of their past collaborations and an ambitious leap forward in this ongoing transnational partnership.
"This workshop-school grew from a shared vision: to combine top-level training with cutting-edge research in an international environment. Altermagnetism is a perfect example of how novel ideas can emerge at the intersection of advanced symmetry analysis, new theoretical descriptions, and technological applications," Stroppa explained.