Cancelled Emerging research landscape of altermagnetism

Magnetism is one of the largest, most fundamental, and technologically most relevant fields of condensed-matter physics. Traditionally, two elementary magnetic phases have been distinguished - ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. The spin polarization in the electronic band structure reflecting the magnetization in ferromagnetic crystals underpins the broad range of time-reversal symmetry-breaking responses in this extensively explored and exploited type of magnets. By comparison, antiferromagnets have vanishing net magnetization. Recently, there have been observations of materials in which strong time-reversal symmetry-breaking responses and spin-polarization phenomena, typical of ferromagnets, are accompanied by antiparallel magnetic crystal order with vanishing net magnetization, typical of antiferromagnets [1]. A classification and description based on spin-symmetry principles offers a resolution of this apparent contradiction by establishing a third distinct elementary magnetic phase, dubbed altermagnetism [2]. We will start the talk with an overview of the still emerging unique phenomenology of this unconventional d-wave (or higher even-parity wave) magnetic phase, and of the wide array of altermagnetic materials. We will then show how altermagnetism can facilitate a development of ultra-fast and low-dissipation spintronic information technologies, and can have impact on a range of other modern areas of condensed matter physics and nanoelectronics.

References
L. Šmejkal, A. H. MacDonald, J. Sinova, S. Nakatsuji, T. Jungwirth, Nature Reviews Mater. 7, 482 (2022).
L. Šmejkal, J. Sinova & T. Jungwirth, Phys. Rev. X (Perspective) 12, 040501 (2022).