Altermagnetic topological insulators in an anisotropic system
Phys. Rev. B 113, 035102 – Published 2 January, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6tc8-pr5j
Abstract
Altermagnets, a class of collinear magnetic materials, have become a thriving topic in the fields of condensed matter physics and material science due to their unusual properties and potential applications. Recently, the study of topological states has been extended to the altermagnetic materials. In this work, we investigate altermagnetic topological insulators in the square model constructed based on the anisotropic Qi-Wu-Zhang (QWZ) model. To clearly identify the topological properties of these altermagnetic states, we first consider the anisotropic QWZ model which hosts the Chern insulator marked with nonzero Chern numbers and the Zak insulator characterized by the Zak phase. We focus on the altermagnetic Zak insulator which is characterized by the spin-dependent Zak phase. Additionally, the model exhibits rich phase transitions which can be identified based on the spin Chern number and the spin Zak phase.
