Zeeman effect in centrosymmetric antiferromagnets controlled by an electric field

Abstract

Centrosymmetric antiferromagnetic semiconductors, although abundant in nature, seem less promising than ferromagnets and ferroelectrics for practical applications in semiconductor spintronics. As a matter of fact, the lack of spontaneous polarization and magnetization hinders the efficient utilization of electronic spin in these materials. Here, we propose a paradigm to harness electronic spin in centrosymmetric antiferromagnets via Zeeman spin splittings of electronic energy levels -- termed as spin Zeeman effect -- which is controlled by electric field.By symmetry analysis, we identify twenty-one centrosymmetric antiferromagnetic point groups that accommodate such a spin Zeeman effect. We further predict by first-principles that two antiferromagnetic semiconductors, Fe${}_2$TeO${}_6$ and SrFe${}_2$S${}_2$O, are excellent candidates showcasing Zeeman splittings as large as $\sim$55 and $\sim$30 meV, respectively, induced by an electric field of 6 MV/cm. Moreover, the electronic spin magnetization associated to the splitting energy levels can be switched by reversing the electric field. Our work thus sheds light on the electric-field control of electronic spin in antiferromagnets, which broadens the scope of application of centrosymmetric antiferromagnetic semiconductors.

References in corpus (4)

• Prediction of low-Z collinear and noncollinear antiferromagnetic compounds having momentum-dependent spin splitting even without spin-orbit coupling
• Gate-controllable magneto-optic Kerr effect in layered collinear antiferromagnets
• Strong influence of non-magnetic ligands on the momentum dependent spin splitting in antiferromagnets
• Bulk Rashba Effect in Multiferroics: a theoretical prediction for BiCoO3

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Predictable gate-field control of spin in altermagnets with spin-layer coupling
• Intrinsic Nonlinear Hall Detection of the Néel Vector for Two-Dimensional Antiferromagnetic Spintronics
• Electrical tuning of robust layered antiferromagnetism in MXene monolayer
• Zeeman-type spin splittings in strained d-wave altermagnets
• Unified Magnetoelectric Mechanism for Spin Splitting in Magnets
• Electrically switchable non-relativistic Zeeman spin splittings in collinear antiferromagnets