Highly efficient non-relativistic Edelstein effect in nodal p-wave magnets.

Chakraborty, Atasi; Birk Hellenes, Anna; Jaeschke-Ubiergo, Rodrigo; Jungwirth, Tomás; Šmejkal, Libor; Sinova, Jairo · Nat Commun · 2025

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The origin and efficiency of charge-to-spin conversion, known as the Edelstein effect (EE), has been typically linked to spin-orbit coupling mechanisms, which require materials with heavy elements within a non-centrosymmetric environment. Here we demonstrate that the high efficiency of spin-charge conversion can be achieved even without spin-orbit coupling in the recently identified coplanar p-wave magnets. The non-relativistic Edelstein effect (NREE) in these magnets exhibits a distinct phenomenology compared to the relativistic EE, characterized by a strongly anisotropic response and an out-of-plane polarized spin density resulting from the spin symmetries. We illustrate the NREE through minimal tight-binding models, allowing a direct comparison to different systems. Through first-principles calculations, we further identify the nodal p-wave candidate material CeNiAsO as a high-efficiency NREE material, revealing a  ~ 25 times larger response than the maximally achieved relativistic EE and other reported NREE in non-collinear magnetic systems with broken time-reversal symmetry. This highlights the potential for efficient spin-charge conversion in p-wave magnetic systems.