Nonlinear opto-magnetic signature of d-wave altermagnets

Abstract

Altermagnetism, a recently discovered collinear magnetic order with net zero magnetization but exhibiting spin-splitting band structure, has attracted much research interest due to the rich fundamental physics and possible applications. In this work, we investigate the opto-magnetic response of $d$-wave altermagnets, focusing on the inverse Cotton-Mouton effect--the induction of static magnetization via linearly polarized light. We find that the direction of the induced magnetization is determined by the Néel vector. Moreover, its magnitude exhibits a periodic dependence on the polarization angle of the incident light, a hallmark of the system's symmetry. Our findings demonstrate that the inverse Cotton-Mouton effect offers a direct method both for detecting $d$-wave altermagnets and for probing their intrinsic properties.