Effective magnetic scattering in dirty superconductor-altermagnet hybrid systems
Phys. Rev. B 113, 134526 – Published 27 April, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/nhmz-rgw9
Abstract
We present a microscopic derivation of Usadel-type theory describing the superconductor-altermagnet hybrid structures in the dirty limit. The combined influence of the momentum-dependent exchange field and potential scattering at nonmagnetic impurities is shown to result in the appearance of the effective magnetic scattering in analogy to the Dyakonov-Perel spin-relaxation mechanism. The disorder, thus, can compensate the destructive effect of the altermagnetic exchange field on the superconducting gap, which can be probed by standard experimental techniques sensitive to the energy dependence of the density of states. The effective magnetic impurities reveal the uniaxial anisotropy determined by the Neel vector of the altermagnet. This anisotropy could be detected, e.g., by the Knight shift measurements in NMR experiments.
