Giant momentum-dependent spin splitting in centrosymmetric low-<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mi>Z</mml:mi></mml:math> antiferromagnets
Lin‐Ding YuanEnergy Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USAZhi WangEnergy Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USAJun‐Wei LuoState Key Laboratory for Superlattices and Microstructures, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083, ChinaÉ. I. RashbaDepartment of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USAAlex ZungerEnergy Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
2020en
ABI
Abstract
The traditional bulk Rashba effect predicts spin-orbit coupling induced wave-vector-dependent spin splitting between energy bands in nonmagnetic solids that lack spatial inversion symmetry. The authors show here how the violation of magnetic symmetry leads instead to a few prototypes of momentum-dependent spin splitting of energy bands that are induced by antiferromagnetism. This discovery broadens the spintronics playing field to include centrosymmetric compounds, even made of light elements with low spin-orbit coupling. Atomistic density functional calculations show that giant splitting above 200 meV is possible between top two valence bands.
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