Spin-orbit coupling is a key to realize many novel physical effects in condensed matter physics. Altermagnetic materials possess the duality of real-space antiferromagnetism and reciprocal-space ferromagnetism. It has not been explored that achieving strong spin-orbit coupling effect in light-element altermagnetic materials. In this work, based on symmetry analysis, the first-principles electronic structure calculations plus Dynamical Mean Field Theory, we demonstrate that there is strong spin-orbit coupling effect in light-element altermagnetic materials NiF3 and FeCO3, and then propose a mechanism for realizing such effective spin-orbit coupling. This mechanism reveals the cooperative effect of crystal symmetry, electron occupation, electronegativity, electron correlation, and intrinsic spin-orbit coupling. Our work provides an approach for searching light-element altermagnetic materials with an effective strong spin-orbit coupling.
@article{arxiv.2401.11065,
title = {Extremely strong spin-orbit coupling effect in light-element altermagnetic materials},
author = {Shuai Qu and Zhen-Feng Ouyang and Ze-Feng Gao and Hao Sun and Kai Liu and Peng-Jie Guo and Zhong-Yi Lu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.11065},
year = {2025}
}