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Altermagnetic multiferroics with symmetry-locked magnetoelectric coupling

Nature Materials (2026)Cite this article

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We discuss altermagnetic multiferroics, materials hosting distinct advantages for low-power spintronic devices, including a zero net magnetization that eliminates stray fields, a momentum-dependent spin splitting enabling controllable spin currents and an intrinsic strong magnetoelectric coupling originating from the spin space symmetry.

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Fig. 1: Altermagnetic–antiferromagnetic phase transition induced by ferroelectric–antiferroelectric switching.
Fig. 2: Polarization-controlled reversal of altermagnetic spin-splitting directions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 12304141), the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (grant no. ZR2023QA001), the Taishan Scholars Program (grant nos. tsqn202312209 and tstp20221130), and the Shandong provincial key research and development plan (grant no. 2022CXPT045). Z.C. thanks the Australian Research Council for support (DP260102992).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Green and Intelligent Building Materials, University of Jinan, Jinan, China

    Wei Sun, Changhong Yang & Shifeng Huang

  2. Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Wollongong, North Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

    Xiaotian Wang & Zhenxiang Cheng

Authors
  1. Wei Sun
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  2. Changhong Yang
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  3. Xiaotian Wang
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  4. Shifeng Huang
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  5. Zhenxiang Cheng
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Correspondence to Zhenxiang Cheng.

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Nature Materials thanks Hugo Dil and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Sun, W., Yang, C., Wang, X. et al. Altermagnetic multiferroics with symmetry-locked magnetoelectric coupling. Nat. Mater. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-026-02518-5

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