Broken Kramers' degeneracy in altermagnetic MnTe

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2308.11180
• Publication Date: 2023-01-01
• Authors: Suyoung Lee; Sangjae Lee; Saegyeol Jung; Ji-Won Jung; Donghan Kim; Yeonjae Lee; Byeongjun Seok; Jae-Young Kim; Byeong Gyu Park; Libor Šmejkal; Chang‐Jong Kang; Changyoung Kim
• Keywords: Degeneracy (biology); Magnetism

Altermagnetism is a newly identified fundamental class of magnetism with vanishing net magnetization and time-reversal symmetry broken electronic structure. Probing the unusual structure nonrelativistic spin splitting would be direct experimental verification altermagnetic phase. By combining high-quality film growth $in~situ$ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we report an candidate, $\alpha$-MnTe. Temperature dependent study reveals lifting Kramers{\textquoteright} degeneracy accompanied by magnetic phase transition at $T_N=267\text{ K}$ up to $370\text{ meV}$, providing spectroscopic evidence for altermagnetism in MnTe.