Odd-Parity Magnetism and Gate-Tunable Edelstein Response in van der Waals Heterostructures

TL;DR

This paper proposes van der Waals heterostructures of stripe antiferromagnets as a platform for electrically controllable odd-parity p-wave magnetism, revealing a gate-tunable Edelstein response driven by higher-order interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic mechanism for odd-parity magnetism in van der Waals heterostructures, highlighting the role of biquadratic interactions and magnetic symmetry breaking.

Findings

Cancellation of RKKY exchange due to stacking symmetry

Transition to orthogonal p-wave magnetic phase controlled by filling

Robust gate-tunable Edelstein response in the p-wave phase

Abstract

Odd-parity magnetism has attracted significant interest for its unconventional spin splitting. However, a concrete microscopic route for its realization remains elusive. In this work, we propose van der Waals heterostructures of stripe antiferromagnets (sAFMs) as an ideal platform for electrically controllable $p$-wave magnetism. In the sAFM/metal/sAFM structure, the leading RKKY-type exchange interaction is canceled due to the symmetry of the stacking pattern. This exposes a higher-order biquadratic interaction as a dominant contribution that drives a filling-controlled transition from a collinear phase to an orthogonal $p$-wave configuration. The resulting $p$-wave phase exhibits a gate-tunable Edelstein response, which originates from magnetic symmetry breaking rather than conventional relativistic spin-momentum locking and remains robust even under substantial spin-orbit coupling. Finally, we propose material candidates for the realization of our theory. Our results establish van der Waals heterostructures as a practical platform for non-relativistic spintronics with electric control of odd-parity spin textures.