Orbital-Splitter Current in Altermagnets

Abstract

In collinear altermagnets, the real-space rotational symmetry of opposite spin sublattices generates a large nonrelativistic spin-splitter current. Orbital transport in this setting has remained largely unexplored. Here, we introduce the orbital-splitter current (OSC), an orbital analogue of the spin-splitter current, and derive its Drude and orbital Berry curvature contributions using a density-matrix framework. We show that the $d$-wave altermagnet $\mathrm{FeSb}_2$ realizes a purely intrinsic OSC because mirror symmetries suppress the Drude channel by forcing the orbital magnetic moment to vanish. The OSC response is strongly anisotropic and, for selected field orientations, exceeds the spin-splitter current by nearly a factor of four. We further show that the OSC generates a damping-like torque in an altermagnet-ferromagnet heterostructure and, when combined with the spin-splitter current, significantly reduces the magnetization switching time.