All-electrically controlled spintronics in altermagnetic heterostructures (2506.05504v2)

Abstract: The recent development of altermagnetic materials, supporting spin splitting without net magnetization, opens new directions for spintronics that are fundamentally distinct from conventional ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, or spin-orbit coupling systems. Here we investigate spin-selective quantum transport in heterostructures composed of a normal metal and a two-dimensional $d$-wave altermagnet. We focus on two types of $d$-wave altermagnets, namely, weak and strong altermagnets that support close elliptic and open hyperbolic spin-resolved Fermi surfaces, respectively. Building on these distinct electronic structures, we propose all-electrically controlled spin filter and spin valve devices, where quantum resonant tunneling enables highly spin-polarized conductance tunable via gate voltage and interface transparency. In particular, we find that strong altermagnets allow gate-tunable full spin polarization that is robust against interface scattering and can be reversed by gate control. We further demonstrate that a double-gated spin valve electrically switches between parallel and antiparallel spin configurations, analogous to magnetic junctions but without the need for external magnetic fields. Our results establish both weak and strong altermagnets as promising platforms for realizing magnetic-field-free electrically tunable spintronic functionalities.