Spin and Orbital Magnetism by Light in Rutile Altermagnets

Abstract

While the understanding of altermagnetism is still at a very early stage, it is expected to play a role in various fields of condensed matter research, for example spintronics, caloritronics and superconductivity. In the field of optical magnetism, it is still unclear to which extent altermagnets as a class can exhibit a distinct behavior. Here we choose RuO${}_2$, a prototype metallic altermagnet with a giant spin splitting, and CoF${}_2$, an experimentally known insulating altermagnet, to study the light-induced magnetism in rutile altermagnets from first-principles. We demonstrate that in the non-relativisic limit the allowed sublattice-resolved orbital response exhibits symmetries, imposed by altermagnetism, which lead to a drastic canting of light-induced moments. On the other hand, we find that inclusion of spin-orbit interaction enhances the overall effect drastically, introduces a significant anisotropy with respect to the light polarization and strongly suppresses the canting of induced moments. Remarkably, we observe that the moments induced by linearly-polarized laser pulses in light altermagnets can even exceed in magnitude those predicted for heavy ferromagnets exposed to circularly polarized light. By resorting to microscopic tools we interpret our results in terms of the altermagnetic spin splittings and of their reciprocal space distribution. Based on our findings, we speculate that optical excitations may provide a unique tool to switch and probe the magnetic state of rutile altermagnets.

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• Staggered Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya inducing weak ferromagnetism in centrosymmetric altermagnets and weak ferrimagnetism in noncentrosymmetric altermagnets
• Contrasting Light-Induced Spin Torque in Antiferromagnetic and Altermagnetic Systems
• Dynamical Generation of Higher-order Spin-Orbit Couplings, Topology and Persistent Spin Texture in Light-Irradiated Altermagnets
• Optical signatures of spin symmetries in unconventional magnets
• Dominant orbital magnetization in the prototypical altermagnet MnTe
• Activation of anomalous Hall effect and orbital magnetization by domain walls in altermagnets
• Quantization of spin circular photogalvanic effect in altermagnetic Weyl semimetals
• Light-induced Orbital and Spin Magnetism in $3d$, $4d$, and $5d$ Transition Metals
• Understanding Field-Free Single-Shot Laser-Induced Reversal of Exchange Bias
• Formulation of the orbital magnetic moment in multiorbital tight-binding models: Application to the inverse Faraday effect
• Nonlinear opto-magnetic signature of d-wave altermagnets
• Altermagnetism from the viewpoint of chemistry