Non-relativistic spin splitting: Features and Functionalities

TL;DR

This review discusses non-relativistic spin splitting in compensated antiferromagnets, highlighting symmetry principles, electronic features, and potential functionalities, emphasizing recent progress and future research directions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of non-relativistic spin splitting in various antiferromagnetic configurations, summarizing identification methods and emerging functionalities.

Findings

Symmetry principles enable spin splitting without net magnetization.

Characteristic features in electronic band structures are identified.

Emerging functionalities suggest new applications in spintronics.

Abstract

Recently, spin splitting of non-relativistic origin in compensated antiferromagnets has drawn growing attention in condensed matter research. Although many materials, now known to exhibit such spin splitting, have been studied for decades, their manifestation along non-high-symmetry momentum directions initially hindered their recognition. In recent years, significant progress has been made in uncovering the symmetry principles that allow non-relativistic spin splitting in the absence of net magnetization, revealing the unconventional physics arising from their coexistence. In this review, we provide a concise overview of non-relativistic spin splitting in compensated antiferromagnets with various spin configurations, including collinear, coplanar, and non-coplanar spin arrangements. We summarize practical identification guidelines, highlight characteristic features in electronic band structures, and discuss the emerging functionalities, with an emphasis on promising directions for future exploration.