Two-dimensional altermagnets from high throughput computational screening: symmetry requirements, chiral magnons and spin-orbit effects

Abstract: We present a high throughput computational search for altermagnetism in two-dimensional (2D) materials based on the Computational 2D Materials Database (C2DB). We start by showing that the symmetry requirements for altermagnetism in 2D are somewhat more strict compared to bulk materials and applying these yields a total of 7 altermagnets in the C2DB. The collinear ground state in these monolayers are verified by spin spiral calculations using the generalized Bloch theorem. We focus on four $d$-wave altermagnetic materials belonging to the $P2_1'/c'$ magnetic space group - RuF$_4$, VF$_4$, AgF$_2$ and OsF$_4$. The first three of these are known experimentally as van der Waals bonded bulk materials and are likely to be exfoliable from their bulk parent compounds. We perform a detailed analysis of the electronic structure and non-relativistic spin splitting in $k$-space exemplified by RuF$_4$. The magnon spectrum of RuF$_4$ is calculated from the magnetic force theorem and it is shown that the symmetries that enforce degenerate magnon bands in anti-ferromagnets are absent in altermagnets and give rise to the obtained non-degenerate magnon spectrum. We then include spin-orbit effects and show that these will dominate the splitting ofmagnons in RuF$_4$. Finally, we provide an example of $i$-wave altermagnetism in the 2H phase of FeBr$_3$.