How to produce spin-splitting in antiferromagnetic materials

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel method to induce spin-splitting in antiferromagnetic materials by engineering atomic environments, confirmed through first-principles calculations on 2D AFM materials, offering new design principles for spintronics.

Contribution

It introduces a simple, environment-based approach to generate spin-splitting in AFM materials without relying on spin-orbit coupling, validated by first-principles studies.

Findings

Spin-splitting can be produced by placing magnetic atoms with opposite spins in different environments.

The method does not require spin-orbit coupling.

Validated on four types of 2D AFM materials.

Abstract

Antiferromagnetic (AFM) materials have potential advantages for spintronics due to their robustness, ultrafast dynamics, and magnetotransport effects. However, the missing spontaneous polarization and magnetization hinders the efficient utilization of electronic spin in these AFM materials. Here, we propose a simple way to produce spin-splitting in AFM materials by making the magnetic atoms with opposite spin polarization locating in the different environment (surrounding atomic arrangement), which does not necessarily require the presence of spin-orbital coupling (SOC). We confirm our proposal by four different types of two-dimensional (2D) AFM materials within the first-principles calculations. Our works provide a intuitional design principle to find or produce spin-splitting in AFM materials.