Surface Functionalization Enables Two-Dimensional Altermagnetism and Giant Tunnel Magnetoresistance

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) altermagnets (AMs) are highly desirable for ultrafast, stray-field-free spintronics because they combine compensated magnetic order and momentum-dependent spin splitting with the scalability, tunability, and interface compatibility of atomically thin materials. However, practical 2D AMs remain scarce. Rather than relying solely on the search for intrinsic 2D AMs, an appealing route is to transform known 2D antiferromagnets (AFMs) into AMs through symmetry engineering. Here, we propose surface functionalization as a symmetry-guided, nonvolatile chemical switch for realizing this AFM-to-AM transformation. By breaking inversion and out-of-plane mirror symmetries while preserving the rotation symmetry connecting opposite-spin sublattices, single-sided functionalization lifts spin degeneracy and induces altermagnetic spin splitting. Using monolayer FeSe as a representative platform, first-principles calculations show that hydrogenation, oxidation, and fluorination convert spin-degenerate antiferromagnetic FeSe into a d-wave AM with pronounced momentum-dependent spin splitting. At the device level, our transport simulations reveal that the functionalized FeSe monolayer magnetic tunnel junctions exhibit giant tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) up to $1.87\times10^3\%$, originating from momentum-selective spin filtering between parallel and antiparallel N\'eel-vector configurations. The strong dependence of TMR on functionalization geometry further demonstrates that surface chemistry provides an effective control knob for altermagnetic transport. Our work establishes a symmetry-to-chemistry-to-device strategy for engineering 2D AMs and developing high-performance altermagnetic spintronic devices.