A critical view on the emerging field of altermagnetism, with own practical experience of studying one of the altermagnetic candidates. The talk introduced two types of candidate materials:

• metallic altermagnets and the absence of altermagnetism in RuO₂
• insulating altermagnets and the recent observations of chiral magnons therein

It also articulated the fact that altermagnetic symmetry alone does not yet guarantee the manifestation of properties expected from an altermagnet.

Successful findings and, above all, challenges in the field of quantum spin liquids have been summarized and highlighted:

• experimental protocols for identifying spin-liquid candidates
• role of structural disorder
• experimental witness of entanglement

This lecture was part of the Young Researcher Forum organized by the TRR360 consortium "Constrained Quantum Matter" supported by DFG

The weaving pattern of traditional Japanese baskets has profound influence on solid-state physics. This talk introduced two major research areas associated with the kagome geometry:

• kagome magnets and the search for quantum spin liquid
• kagome metals and the fate of unconventional superconductivity therein

and showed unexpected manifestations of kagome materials, including cabalistic star-of-David patterns of charge-density waves and the occurrence of kagome minerals on extraterrestrial planets.

Is frustrated magnetism a frustrating topic? Not necessarily. This lecture addressed one of its most intriguing aspects, the exotic state of quantum spin liquid, and covered some of the most common questions asked by newcomers:

• what is a spin liquid?
• how to observe it?
• what are implications of the spin-liquid state?

This lecture was part of the summer school organized by the TRR80 consortium "From correlations to functionality" supported by DFG

Magnetic property characterization has become a routine part of the solid-state chemistry work, yet many chemists never go further than collecting their observations obtained using MPMS/PPMS and storing these data in publications. This lecture sought to broaden chemist's view of the magnetic behavior and explain:

• what to measure and how to interpret the results?
• what can be calculated ab initio?
• how to deal with magnetic models and connect ab initio results to the experiment?

The lecture was given on the invitation by Olivier Mentré and supported by the University of Lille

Disorder and minor structural details: are they important for magnetism? Yes, they are, and structural phase transitions can be one way of detecting such issues. This lecture gave some (hopefully instructive) examples of ambiguities in published crystal structures and their repercussions for the low-temperature physics research. It also gives hints on how to deal with structural phase transitions when they are encountered in solid-state chemistry work.