Predictable Gate-Field Control of Spin in Altermagnets with Spin-Layer Coupling

Spintronics, a technology harnessing electron spin for information transmission, offers a promising avenue to surpass the limitations of conventional electronic devices. While the spin directly interacts with the magnetic field, its control through the electric field is generally more practical, and has become a focal point in the field. Here, we propose a mechanism to realize static and almost uniform effective magnetic field by gate-electric field. Our method employs two-dimensional altermagnets with valley-mediated spin-layer coupling (SLC), in which electronic states display valley-contrasted spin and layer polarization. For the low-energy valley electrons, a uniform gate field is approximately identical to a uniform magnetic field, leading to predictable control of spin. Through symmetry analysis and ab initio calculations, we predict altermagnetic monolayer Ca (CoN) ₂ and its family materials as potential candidates hosting SLC. We show that an almost uniform magnetic field (Bₙ) indeed is generated by gate field (Eₙ) in Ca (CoN) ₂ with Bₙ∝Eₙ in a wide range, and Bₙ reaches as high as about 10^3 T when Eₙ=0. 2 eV/Å. Furthermore, owing to the clean band structure and SLC, one can achieve perfect and switchable spin and valley currents and significant tunneling magnetoresistance in Ca (CoN) ₂ solely using the gate field. Our work provides new opportunities to generate predictable control of spin and design spintronic devices that can be controlled by purely electric means.