Engineers at Brown University report ultrathin films of the multiferroic bismuth ferrite that keep their electrical and magnetic properties at thicknesses of a few angstroms. The work, in Nature Materials, is laboratory materials research on thin films; it does not report a working chip.
What the researchers reported
Multiferroic materials normally lose their useful properties when made very thin, the “dead layer” problem that Brown’s October 28, 2026 news release describes as historically a deal-breaker for chip use. The team, led by Lucas Caretta, an assistant professor of engineering at Brown, grew bismuth ferrite on a dysprosium scandate substrate. The substrate’s slightly narrower crystal structure compresses the film and helps it keep its functional atomic arrangement. A second metallic layer absorbs stray electric fields that would otherwise disrupt electrical polarization.
Caretta is quoted in the release: “We show that you can make this material basically as thin as you want — down to a few angstroms — and it’s still ferroelectric, and it’s still magnetic.” The release also says the engineered stack behaves as an altermagnet, a hybrid of ferromagnet and antiferromagnet behavior, and that the film shows enhanced magnetic properties.
The paper
The study is “Altermagnetic signatures and topological textures in ultrathin multiferroic BiFeO3”, published in Nature Materials (DOI 10.1038/s41563-026-02786-1; article page). Its author list is long and spans multiple institutions, with Caretta among the authors. ScienceDaily republished the release on November 12, 2026 under the headline “A breakthrough in magnetism could make AI chips use dramatically less energy”.
What it means for AI hardware
The release’s stated link to AI hardware is indirect. Multiferroic polarization can be flipped with small voltage pulses to encode binary data, and because the magnetic state is coupled to the electrical one, the data can be read out magnetically. The release says multiferroics could support low-power memory and logic devices, and quotes Caretta on altermagnets: “Altermagnets are kind of the best of both worlds.” It reports no power, speed or device-performance figures, and Caretta calls the results “a step toward” low-power computing, adding that “the trick is learning how to engineer them into a form that’s useful.” The headline energy claim is therefore a stated potential of the material class, not a measured saving.
Funding
The release lists support from the U.S. Army Research Office (W911NF-21-2-0162), the National Science Foundation (DMR-2039380 and OIA-2327352) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DE-AC02-05CH11231).
Why research offices should note it
- Stage of the work. Thin-film materials results are early in the path to devices. Press coverage that headlines AI energy savings should be read against the paper’s own scope.
- Multi-agency, multi-institution awards. Three federal funders appear in the acknowledgments, which makes consistent award-number reporting in outputs and in institutional research information systems a practical task for sponsored-programs and research-information staff.
- Communications. Offices reviewing releases for their own institution can use the Brown release and paper as a pair: the release carries the framing, the paper carries the evidence.
Sources
- Brown University news release, October 28, 2026
- Nature Materials article (DOI 10.1038/s41563-026-02786-1)
- ScienceDaily, November 12, 2026
