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Deterministic Switching in Altermagnets via Asymmetric Sublattice Spin Current

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2025-10-14 v1 Materials Science

Abstract

We demonstrate a deterministic switching mechanism in collinear altermagnets driven by asymmetric sublattice spin currents. Unlike conventional antiferromagnets, where combined parity-time-reversal symmetry enforces purely staggered sublattice spin torques, altermagnets host symmetry-protected nonrelativistic spin splitting that produces unequal torques on the two sublattices. Using doped FeSb2_2 as a representative dd-wave altermagnet, our Landau--Lifshitz--Gilbert simulations show that these torques enable magnetic-field-free and deterministic 180^\circ N\'eel vector reversal over picosecond timescale. The mechanism is generic to even-parity altermagnets and remains effective even in centrosymmetric, weak spin-orbit coupled systems, where the N\'eel spin-orbit torque mechanism fails. Our results establish an experimentally accessible mechanism for switching of altermagnetic order, opening pathways for realizing ultrafast, low-power altermagnet spintronic devices.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.11362,
  title  = {Deterministic Switching in Altermagnets via Asymmetric Sublattice Spin Current},
  author = {Sayan Sarkar and Sunit Das and Amit Agarwal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.11362},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

4+1 figures, 1 table, comments are most welcome

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:33:56.808Z