Andreev reflection at the altermagnet-superconductor interface

Understand

Altermagnets are a new class of magnetic materials, which exhibit large spin splitting, but due to the combined spin and real space group symmetry protection maintain zero net macroscopic magnetization.

• Such a characteristic may prove them to be superior in applications in superconducting heterostructures and thus here we investigate the Andreev reflection at the altermagnet/superconductor interface.
• We compare and contrast altermagnets to other magnetic materials, revealing qualitative differences in the behavior of altermagnetic junction depending on the Fermi surface orientation.
• We study the resonant states arising in setups with strong tunneling barriers and show that sensitivity to non-magnetic disorder is also dependent on the orientation.