Sliding Engineering Spin-Valley-Layer Coupling and Altermagnetism in Bilayer Antiferromagnetic Honeycomb Lattices

Abstract

Valley polarization and altermagnetism are two emerging fundamental phenomena in condensed matter physics, offering unprecedented opportunites for information encoding and processing in novel energy-efficient devices. By coupling valley and spin degrees of freedom with ferroic orders such as ferroelectricity, nonvolatile memory functionalities can be achieved. Here, we propose a way to realize ferroelectric-valley (FE-valley) and FE-altermagnetic coupling in a bilayer antiferromagnetic (AFM) honeycomb lattices based on an effective four-band spin-full $k\cdot p$ model. Our proposal is validated in bilayer MnPTe$_3$ through first-principles calculations. A spontaneous out-of-plane electric polarization occurs in AB- (BA-) stacking configuration, which is reversibly switchable via interlayer sliding. Remarkably, polarization reversal simultaneously inverts both layer-resolved valley polarization and altermagnetic spin splitting. This dual control enables tunable layer-spin-locked anomalous valley Hall effects and an unprecedented magnetoelectric response in 2D antiferromagnets. Our work establishes a general paradigm for electrically programmable valleytronic and spintronic functionalities of 2D AFM materials.