Adatom engineering magnetic order in superconductors: Applications to altermagnetic superconductivity

Abstract

We study theoretically how superlattices based on adatoms on surfaces of unconventional superconductors can be used to engineer novel pairing states that break time-reversal symmetry and exhibit non-trivial magnetic point symmetries. We illustrate this using a square-lattice Hubbard model with $d$-wave superconductivity and a subleading $s$-wave state as an example. An adatom superlattice with square-lattice symmetries is shown to stabilize an "orbital-altermagnetic superconductor'', a state that exhibits loop current patterns and associated orbital magnetic moments, which preserve superlattice translations but are odd under four-fold rotations. This state is further characterized by a non-zero Berry curvature quadrupole moment and, upon including spin-orbit coupling, by an altermagnetic spin splitting of the bands and non-trivial spin textures in the superlattice unit cell, with zero net spin moment.