Altermagnetic memcapacitors

Abstract

We propose a spintronic memcapacitance effect based upon altermagnetic multiferroic materials. We identify the rare-earth vanadates RVO$_3$ as a concrete platform, with all key parameters tied to measured properties. Under an oscillating electric field, the resulting charge and spin currents trace pinched hysteresis loops that close tangentially at zero field -- the hallmark of memcapacitive, type-2 memdevice behavior -- with charge current densities exceeding, by a factor of about 3.6, the lowest deterministic switching current density reported for optimized spin-transfer-torque magnetic tunnel junctions. We model the system theoretically as a dimerized two-orbital $d$-wave altermagnetic lattice via a Su--Schrieffer--Heeger-type bond modulation, in the spirit of the spin-dependent Rice--Mele model, thereby coupling the altermagnetic order to field-switchable charge and spin polarizations. The associated polarization loops close tangentially at zero field and yield a sign-changing, history-dependent ``butterfly'' differential capacitance, identifying the device as a genuine memcapacitor. Both responses are protected by the same inversion symmetry, so charge and spin channels switch simultaneously with no separate control needed. These results establish altermagnetic multiferroics, realized concretely in RVO$_3$, as an efficient, non-volatile platform for combined electric and spintronic memory.