Direct observation of altermagnetic band splitting in CrSb thin films

Abstract

Altermagnetism represents an emergent collinear magnetic phase with compensated order and an unconventional alternating even-parity wave spin order in the non-relativistic band structure. We investigate directly this unconventional band splitting near the Fermi energy through spin-integrated soft X-ray angular resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The experimentally obtained angle-dependent photoemission intensity, acquired from epitaxial thin films of the predicted altermagnet CrSb, demonstrates robust agreement with the corresponding band structure calculations. In particular, we observe the distinctive splitting of an electronic band on a low-symmetry path in the Brilliouin zone that connects two points featuring symmetry-induced degeneracy. The measured large magnitude of the spin splitting of approximately 0.6 eV and the position of the band just below the Fermi energy underscores the significance of altermagnets for spintronics based on robust broken time reversal symmetry responses arising from exchange energy scales, akin to ferromagnets, while remaining insensitive to external magnetic fields and possessing THz dynamics, akin to antiferromagnets.

The fundamental hallmark of altermagnetism lies in the spin splitting of electronic valence bands. Here, the authors observe splitting in metallic CrSb, revealing an exceptionally large value and energetic placement just below the Fermi energy.