Three new papers published this month share a common thread: antiferromagnets carry no net moment, are largely insensitive to external magnetic fields, and generate no stray fields of their own. Yet light can still read out their hidden magnetic (and nematic) order. These results point toward magneto-optical devices that stay silent to the outside world while remaining fully addressable from within.

• Direct imaging of Berry curvature–induced transport and domain behavior in noncollinear single-crystal antiferromagnetic thin films, Science Advances 12, eaeb6478 (2026)
• Nonvolatile Nematic Order Manipulated by Strain and Magnetic Field in a Layered Antiferromagnet, Nature Communications 17, 9129 (2026)
• Temperature-invariant magneto-optical Kerr effect in a noncollinear antiferromagnet, Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074407 (2026)

Congratulations to postdoc Camron Farhang, graduate student David Lu, and undergraduate Shaofeng Han, and thanks to our collaborators: Chang-Beom Eom’s group at UW–Madison, Linda Ye’s group at Caltech, and Hua Chen’s group at Colorado State.

Congratulations to Shaofeng Han and Marshall Zachary Franklin on completing their undergraduate honors theses and graduating! Shaofeng will continue in our lab as a PhD student, while Marshall heads to UIUC for his PhD. We wish them both the best.

Jing Xia has rewritten the group website. iWeb has been thanked for its service and gently escorted into retirement.

Spontaneous Kerr effect reveals defect origin of TRSB in altermagnetic MnTe (arXiv:2604.21021).

Postdoc and undergrad co-first authored — topological magneto-optical Kerr effect in spin-compensated antiferromagnet.

In a spin-compensated magnet (arXiv:2602.17872).