2024/08/01 by Bei Jiang, Mingzhe Hu, Jiang, Bei +41 · 66 citations
Chemistry · Materials Science · #FOS: Physical sciences #Inorganic Chemistry and Materials #Magnetism in coordination complexes #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Organic and Molecular Conductors Research #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) #Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2408.00320
openalex publication_date 2024/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Beyond conventional ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, altermagnetism is a recently discovered unconventional magnetic phase characterized by time-reversal symmetry breaking and spin-split band structures in materials with zero net magnetization. This distinct magnetic phase not only enriches the understanding of fundamental physical concepts but also has profound impacts on condense-matter physics research and practical device applications. Spin-polarized band structures have been recently observed in semiconductors MnTe and MnTe2 with vanishing net magnetization, confirming the existence of this unconventional magnetic order. Metallic altermagnets have unique advantages for exploring novel physical phenomena related to low-energy quasiparticle excitations and for applications in spintronics as electrical conductivity in metals allows the direct manipulation of spin current through electric field. Here, through comprehensive characterization and analysis of the magnetic and electronic structures of KV2Se2O, we have unambiguously demonstrated a metallic room-temperature altermaget with d-wave spin-momentum locking. The highly anisotropic spin-polarized Fermi surfaces and the spin-density-wave order emerging in the altermagnetic phase make it an extraordinary platform for designing high-performance spintronic devices and studying many-body effects coupled with the unconventional magnetism.