All optical ultrafast pure spin current in the altermagnet Cr$_2$SO

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Gill, Deepika, Wu, Ruikai, Elliott, Peter, Sharma, Sangeeta, Shallcross, Sam
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Gill, Deepika
Wu, Ruikai
Elliott, Peter
Sharma, Sangeeta
Shallcross, Sam
author_facet Gill, Deepika
Wu, Ruikai
Elliott, Peter
Sharma, Sangeeta
Shallcross, Sam
contents All-optical generation of pure spin current -- the flow of spin in the absence of a corresponding charge flow -- relies on a symmetry based compensation of valley charge. The 2d $d$-wave altermagnets, ideal spintronics materials due to a very low spin-orbit coupling, possess a magnetic point group and highly anisotropic valley manifolds that would appear to preclude such current compensation, excluding them as materials for the ultrafast generation of pure spin current. Here we show that infra-red valley excitation combined with a THz pulse envelope allows the generation of large and nearly 100\% pure spin currents in the altermagnet Cr$_2$SO. Our approach is based on a valley selection rule coupling linearly polarized light to spin opposite valleys, along with the intrinsic momentum shift that a co-occurring THz pulse imbues a valley spin excitation with. These results thus provide a practical and all-optical route to the generation of pure spin current in $d$-wave 2d altermagnets, opening a route to lightwave control of spin in an environment with very low intrinsic spin mixing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_12824
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle All optical ultrafast pure spin current in the altermagnet Cr$_2$SO
Gill, Deepika
Wu, Ruikai
Elliott, Peter
Sharma, Sangeeta
Shallcross, Sam
Materials Science
Other Condensed Matter
Computational Physics
Optics
Quantum Physics
All-optical generation of pure spin current -- the flow of spin in the absence of a corresponding charge flow -- relies on a symmetry based compensation of valley charge. The 2d $d$-wave altermagnets, ideal spintronics materials due to a very low spin-orbit coupling, possess a magnetic point group and highly anisotropic valley manifolds that would appear to preclude such current compensation, excluding them as materials for the ultrafast generation of pure spin current. Here we show that infra-red valley excitation combined with a THz pulse envelope allows the generation of large and nearly 100\% pure spin currents in the altermagnet Cr$_2$SO. Our approach is based on a valley selection rule coupling linearly polarized light to spin opposite valleys, along with the intrinsic momentum shift that a co-occurring THz pulse imbues a valley spin excitation with. These results thus provide a practical and all-optical route to the generation of pure spin current in $d$-wave 2d altermagnets, opening a route to lightwave control of spin in an environment with very low intrinsic spin mixing.
title All optical ultrafast pure spin current in the altermagnet Cr$_2$SO
topic Materials Science
Other Condensed Matter
Computational Physics
Optics
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.12824