Large intrinsic spin Hall effect in altermagnetic CrSb: A first-principles study

Altermagnets (AM) have emerged as a newly-discovered class of collinear magnetic materials that fundamentally differ from both ferromagnets and antiferromagnets. They uniquely combine a fully spin-split electronic band structure across almost the entire Brillouin zone; reminiscent of ferromagnets, with a vanishing net magnetization due to compensated sublattice magnetic moments, as in antiferromagnets. This distinctive interplay of symmetry and magnetic ordering positions altermagnets as promising candidates for advancing spintronic technologies. In this theoretical work, we employ density functional theory combined with Green's function techniques to explore the transport properties of the altermagnet CrSb, a material distinguished by its pronounced band splitting; reaching up to 1eV, and high Néel temperature of approximately 700K. Our investigation focuses on the intrinsic spin Hall conductivity (SHC), which originates from the Berry curvature of the electronic bands. Our results reveal that the altermagnet CrSb exhibits large spin Hall conductivities in two components of the spin Hall tensor, with this behavior persisting up to room temperature once thermal lattice vibrations are included. These findings highlight the strong potential of altermagnets for efficient spin current generation in spintronic applications.