English

Twin-boundary-induced nonrelativistic spin splitting

Materials Science 2025-11-19 v1

Abstract

Nonrelativistic spin splitting (NRSS) in compensated magnetic materials is drawing considerable attention due to its potential impact in next-generation spintronic devices. While NRSS is typically restricted to materials with particular symmetry constraints, here we demonstrate, using density functional theory (DFT) and tight-binding transport calculations, that twin boundaries can induce NRSS in magnetic systems where it is otherwise forbidden. We focus on two representative material systems: the tetragonal perovskite oxide BiCoO3_3 with 9090^{\circ} ferroelastic domain walls, and the rhombohedral layered delafossite-type oxide CoO2_2, supporting 7171^{\circ}, 109109^{\circ}, and 135135^{\circ} twin boundaries. Our results reveal that, if these boundaries coexist with ferromagnetic domain walls, they consistently produce NRSS similar to that of d-wave altermagnets, with nodal surfaces dictated by the underlying symmetry of the supercell containing the twin boundary. Tight-binding models further elucidate how the NRSS and derived transport properties scale with domain size and density. Our results put forward twin boundary engineering as a versatile route to realize and control spin splitting in a broader class of materials.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.14029,
  title  = {Twin-boundary-induced nonrelativistic spin splitting},
  author = {Kristoffer Eggestad and Marc Vila and Sverre M. Selbach and Sinéad M. Griffin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.14029},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:42:27.886Z