English

Spin polarization engineering in $d$-wave altermagnets

Materials Science 2026-02-06 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

Altermagnets host unconventional spin-polarized bands despite zero net magnetization, but controlling their spin structure remains challenging. We propose a multi-field approach to engineer spin polarization in dd-wave altermagnets using gating, optical driving, and in-plane electric fields, which enable tunable and switchable polarizations along multiple directions. Optical driving induces out-of-plane (zz) polarization, while gating and in-plane fields generate xx- and yy-polarizations via the Edelstein effect, all of which are experimentally detectable. We further find that spin- and band-selective doping induces chiral optical activity, a feature unique to altermagnets. Our approach provides a versatile route for full control of spin polarization in altermagnets.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.02452,
  title  = {Spin polarization engineering in $d$-wave altermagnets},
  author = {Mohsen Yarmohammadi and Marco Berritta and Marin Bukov and Libor Šmejkal and Jacob Linder and Peter M. Oppeneer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.02452},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

10 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:14:09.734Z