Project Details

The aim of our materials research project is to experimentally establish interlinked new paradigms in crystallography, band structure, and electronics in altermagnets, a newly identified class of collinear compensated magnets. Using diffraction and microscopy measurements down to atomic-scale resolution, we demonstrate unique crystallographic signatures of altermagnets that go beyond the established nomenclature of magnetic symmetry groups. These signatures give rise to a fundamentally new form of wavevector-dependent spin-splitting, previously omitted in the band theory of solids, which we elucidate by spectroscopy measurements and ab initio calculations. We show that spin-split bands in dipole-free altermagnets generate conserved, highly polarized spin currents, analogous to the spin currents driving reading and writing functionalities in ferromagnetic memory devices. Beyond spin electronics, the project opens pathways toward impact in fields ranging from macroscopic quantum and topological phases to dissipationless microelectronics.