Extrinsic Spin Splitter Currents in Altermagnets

TL;DR

This paper develops a semiclassical theory for extrinsic spin-splitter currents in altermagnets, revealing impurity scattering as a dominant mechanism and showing the spin conductivity is time-reversal even, unlike previous responses.

Contribution

It introduces a unified semiclassical framework for extrinsic spin-splitter currents in altermagnets, highlighting impurity scattering as a key factor and contrasting with prior symmetric scattering results.

Findings

Asymmetric impurity scattering dominates spin-splitter currents.

Extrinsic spin conductivity in altermagnets is time-reversal even.

The theory is applied to the $d$-wave altermagnet FeSb2.

Abstract

Altermagnets exhibit momentum-dependent spin splitting despite having zero net magnetization. This enables a spin-splitter effect in which an external electric field generates transverse spin currents by separating oppositely polarized carriers. Here, we develop a unified semiclassical theory of linear extrinsic spin-splitter currents, incorporating impurity-induced side-jump and skew-scattering contributions, and apply it to the $d$-wave altermagnet \ch{FeSb2}. We demonstrate that asymmetric impurity scattering provides a dominant channel for spin-splitter currents. Remarkably, the resulting extrinsic spin conductivity is time-reversal even, in contrast to previously studied spin-splitter responses arising from symmetric scattering.