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Signatures of bulk g-wave altermagnetism in optically excited α−MnTe

Luca Felipe Haag1, Marius Weber2,1, Kai Leckron1, Libor Šmejkal3,4,5, Jairo Sinova2,6, and Hans Christian Schneider1

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Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074413 – Published 22 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ypfs-fy39

Abstract

For planar d-wave altermagnets, it has been shown that a spin polarization can be induced in a controlled fashion by ultrashort-pulse excitation, even though the material is magnetically compensated. Here, we theoretically analyze the response of the prototypical bulk g−wave altermagnet α−MnTe to linearly polarized ultrashort pulses. We demonstrate how the electronic spin response in α−MnTe exhibits different symmetry characteristics by calculating the excited electron distributions based on ab initio band structure data. These characteristics depend not only on the nodal planes of the bulk g-wave altermagnet, but also on the excitation pulse. We present a simple procedure to analyze the excited-state characteristics via two-dimensional cuts through the three-dimensional Brillouin zone, which can be used as guidance to present-day magneto-optical techniques.

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This article appears in the following collection:

Altermagnetic and Related Materials

Editors of Physical Review Materials are pleased to present the Collection on Altermagnetic and Related Materials, highlighting cutting-edge advances in theoretical and experimental identification of novel altermagnetic materials, their properties, and their potential applications. The Collection is being guest-edited by Kirill Belashchenko of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (USA), Cheng Song of Tsinghua University (China), and Peter Wadley of The University of Nottingham (UK). Every article published in this collection underwent a rigorous peer review process, adhering to the same high standards applied to all papers. The Physical Review Materials editorial team managed the peer review and made all editorial decisions.

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Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074413– Published 22 July, 2026
  • Received 23 March 2026
  • Accepted 23 June 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.

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