Srđan Stavrić
Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences-National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, University of Belgrade

Altermagnetism is a fascinating newly discovered magnetic phase that caused great excitement within the materials science community. Particularly intriguing is that altermagnets have existed all the time alongside ferromagnets and antiferromagnets – they were just overlooked – until recently when their distinct features pointed out by theoretical studies [2,3] were corroborated by experiments [4,5]. Altermagnets have a blend of properties akin to ferromagnets and antiferromagnets, showing high promises for applications in spin-based electronic devices. In this lecture, I will give a short overview of altermagnetism, explaining why all the stakes in spintronics are currently in altermagnetism-related research. Then, I will explain how two-dimensional (2D) magnets differ from their 3D counterparts and the role of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) therein. At this stage, I will arrive at the main topic of my talk – the monolayer RuF₄ and its structural relatives VF₄ and OsF₄ – new two-dimensional altermagnets that our combined Serbian-Slovakian team has been extensively studying and which exhibit peculiar interplay between altermagnetism and SOC-induced weak ferromagnetism [1]. Intriguingly, this interplay offers new opportunities in controlling spintronic devices based on 2D altermagnets, as I will point out in the last part of the lecture.

[1] M. Milivojević, M. Orozović, S. Picozzi, M. Gmitra, S. Stavrić, 2D Mater. 11, 035025 (2024)
[2] L. D. Yuan et al, Phys. Rev. Materials 5, 014409 (2021)
[3] L. Šmejkal et al, Phys. Rev. X 12, 031042 (2022)
[4] J. Krempaský et al, Nature 626, 517–522 (2024)
[5] Y. P. Zhu et al, Nature 626, 523–528 (2024)

PDF of the talk