A team of physicists at RIKEN in Japan has published a significant study in Nature Communications, discovering that a new type of compensated antiferromagnetic material exhibits outstanding thermoelectric conversion performance. The research, led by Dr. Duy Khanh Nguyen, provides fresh ideas for the development of energy harvesting technologies.

The researchers found that this material, with its non-coplanar spin structure, can achieve highly efficient thermoelectric conversion even with almost zero net magnetic field. Nguyen stated: "Although the overall magnetization is very small, the conversion efficiency is surprisingly high." Excellent agreement between experimental measurements and theoretical simulations confirms that the material's exceptional properties stem from symmetry-induced "virtual" magnetic field hotspots.

The material not only offers high-density integration potential but also features highly tunable chemical composition. The researchers note that conversion efficiency can be further enhanced by adjusting the constituent elements. This discovery lays the foundation for developing new energy harvesting devices while pointing the way toward exploring more high-performance thermoelectric materials. The team plans to use computational simulation methods to screen additional candidate materials with similar structures.