2024/01/19 by Qu, Shuai, Ouyang, Zhen-Feng, Gao, Ze-Feng +4 · 1 citation
#FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2401.11065
Spin-orbit coupling is a key to realize many novel physical effects in condensed matter physics. Altermagnetic materials possess the duality of real-space antiferromagnetism and reciprocal-space ferromagnetism. It has not been explored that achieving strong spin-orbit coupling effect in light-element altermagnetic materials. In this work, based on symmetry analysis, the first-principles electronic structure calculations plus Dynamical Mean Field Theory, we demonstrate that there is strong spin-orbit coupling effect in light-element altermagnetic materials \rm NiF3 and \rm FeCO3, and then propose a mechanism for realizing such effective spin-orbit coupling. This mechanism reveals the cooperative effect of crystal symmetry, electron occupation, electronegativity, electron correlation, and intrinsic spin-orbit coupling. Our work provides an approach for searching light-element altermagnetic materials with an effective strong spin-orbit coupling.