Work

Signatures of bulk g-wave altermagnetism in optically excited α − MnTe

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: For planar d-wave altermagnets, it has been shown that a spin polarization can be induced in a controlled fashion by ultrashort-pulse excitation, even though the material is magnetically compensated. Here, we theoretically analyze the response of the prototypical bulk g − wave altermagnet α − MnTe to linearly polarized ultrashort pulses. We demonstrate how the electronic spin response in α − MnTe exhibits different symmetry characteristics by calculating the excited electron distributions based on band structure data. These characteristics depend not only on the nodal planes of the bulk g-wave altermagnet, but also on the excitation pulse. We present a simple procedure to analyze the excited-state characteristics via two-dimensional cuts through the three-dimensional Brillouin zone, which can be used as guidance to present-day magneto-optical techniques.

Source: Physical Review Materials

DOI: 10.1103/ypfs-fy39

Authors: Luca Felipe Haag, Marius Weber, Kai Leckron, Libor Šmejkal, Jairo Sinova, Hans Christian Schneider