Researchers at Trinity College in Dublin discovered a new class of magnetic materials, based on Mn-Ga alloys. The Mn2RuxGa, a zero-moment half metal, has some unique properties that may make it especially suited for spintronics applications.
The Mn2RuxGa material has no net magnetic moment, but it has full spin polarization. This means that is does not suffer from its own demagnetizing forces and it does not create any stray magnetic fields. It is also immune to external magnetic fields. Coupled with spin polarization, this means it may be extremely efficient in spintronics as there will be no radiation loss during magnetic switching.
It is also possible to use this material efficiently at the low-terahertz switching speed, which was not possible until now - which makes it interesting for data transmission applications.