Theoretical anatomy of altermagnetic α-MnTe from magnetism to triple-resistance states
5 affiliations
- 1State Key Laboratory of Spintronics, School of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
- 2School of Power and Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
- 3Engineering Department, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
- 4Peter Grünberg Institut, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA, Jülich, Germany
- 5Institute for Theoretical Physics, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
Abstract
α-MnTe is among the earliest discovered altermagnets with experimental evidence of A-type antiferromagnetic order above room temperature and spin-split bands. Here, we conduct a theoretical investigation of its magnetism based on the general symmetry-adaptive tensorial spin model, which not only confirms a Néel temperature of 340 K induced by the dominant 1st and 3rd nearest-neighbor Heisenberg exchanges, but also the hexagonal planar Néel vector polarization of the ground state due to both the single-ion and the two-ion anisotropies. The 6-fold rotation symmetry along z prohibits an in-plane easy axis when only considering rank-2 and rank-4 interactions, revealing the continuous ground state degeneracy. Subsequently, we show that the triple-resistance states can be realized by adopting MnTe as the barrier in the sandwiched magnetic tunnel junctions. By deliberately matching the Brillouin zone-resolved spin transport of both the barrier and the electrode, tunneling magnetoresistance up to ~5300% is obtained. Our work not only provides a fine database of the magnetism and transmission for MnTe, but also sheds light on the application in high-density spintronic memory devices.
Related
- Altermagnetic spintronics
- Strain engineering of altermagnetic symmetry in epitaxial RuO 2 films
- Bipolarized Weyl semimetals and quantum crystal valley Hall effect in two-dimensional altermagnetic materials
- Anomalous Superfluid Response in Altermagnetic Superconductors
- Altermagnetic Control of Charge-4e Superconductivity
BibTeX
@article{deng2026theoretical,
title = {{Theoretical anatomy of altermagnetic α-MnTe from magnetism to triple-resistance states}},
author = {Boyang Deng and Yuzheng Guo and John Robertson and Weisheng Zhao and Stefan Blügel and Haichang Lu},
journal = {Npj Spintronics},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s44306-026-00166-8},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s44306-026-00166-8},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Theoretical anatomy of altermagnetic α-MnTe from magnetism to triple-resistance states
AU - Boyang Deng
AU - Yuzheng Guo
AU - John Robertson
AU - Weisheng Zhao
AU - Stefan Blügel
AU - Haichang Lu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/30
JO - Npj Spintronics
DO - 10.1038/s44306-026-00166-8
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s44306-026-00166-8
AB - α-MnTe is among the earliest discovered altermagnets with experimental evidence of A-type antiferromagnetic order above room temperature and spin-split bands. Here, we conduct a theoretical investigation of its magnetism based on the general symmetry-adaptive tensorial spin model, which not only confirms a Néel temperature of 340 K induced by the dominant 1st and 3rd nearest-neighbor Heisenberg exchanges, but also the hexagonal planar Néel vector polarization of the ground state due to both the single-ion and the two-ion anisotropies. The 6-fold rotation symmetry along z prohibits an in-plane easy axis when only considering rank-2 and rank-4 interactions, revealing the continuous ground state degeneracy. Subsequently, we show that the triple-resistance states can be realized by adopting MnTe as the barrier in the sandwiched magnetic tunnel junctions. By deliberately matching the Brillouin zone-resolved spin transport of both the barrier and the electrode, tunneling magnetoresistance up to ~5300% is obtained. Our work not only provides a fine database of the magnetism and transmission for MnTe, but also sheds light on the application in high-density spintronic memory devices.
SN - 2948-2119
ER -