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Altermagnetism of ultrathin CrSb slabs

Brahim Marfoua1,*, Mohammad Amirabbasi2, and Marcus Ekholm1,†

  • *Contact author: brahim.marfoua@liu.se
  • †Contact author: marcus.ekholm@liu.se
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Phys. Rev. B 113, 214439 – Published 16 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/k9zm-2k1v

Abstract

Altermagnets exhibit momentum-dependent spin splitting without net magnetization, combining characteristics of both ferromagnets and antiferromagnets, making them highly interesting for spintronics applications. CrSb is a prime candidate with a high Néel temperature (∼700K) and a large exchange-driven splitting of ∼0.6–1eV. Using ab initio calculations, we consider slabs of various orientations in the ultrathin limit. In (0001)-oriented slabs, the exchange-driven altermagnetic spin splitting collapses, but including spin-orbit coupling restores a residual anisotropic splitting of ∼70meV. The (100)-oriented slabs become fully spin degenerate due to symmetry reduction. In contrast, the (110)-oriented slabs show a strong altermagnetic spin splitting of ∼400meV, and thus emerges as a robust candidate for realizing large, exchange-driven altermagnetism.

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 214439– Published 16 June, 2026
  • Received 1 October 2025
  • Revised 22 April 2026
  • Accepted 27 May 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by Bibsam.

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