English

Extrinsic Spin Splitter Currents in Altermagnets

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2026-02-27 v1

Abstract

Altermagnets exhibit momentum-dependent spin splitting despite having zero net magnetization. This enables a spin-splitter effect in which an external electric field generates transverse spin currents by separating oppositely polarized carriers. Here, we develop a unified semiclassical theory of linear extrinsic spin-splitter currents, incorporating impurity-induced side-jump and skew-scattering contributions, and apply it to the dd-wave altermagnet \ch{FeSb2}. We demonstrate that asymmetric impurity scattering provides a dominant channel for spin-splitter currents. Remarkably, the resulting extrinsic spin conductivity is time-reversal even, in contrast to previously studied spin-splitter responses arising from symmetric scattering.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.23273,
  title  = {Extrinsic Spin Splitter Currents in Altermagnets},
  author = {Sanjay Sarkar and Sayan Sarkar and Amit Agarwal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.23273},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

17 pages, 6 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:54:17.594Z