Transport evidence of current-induced nematic Dirac valleys in a parity-time-symmetric antiferromagnet.

Abstract

Itinerant antiferromagnets with broken time-reversal symmetry have recently attracted attention, since their spin-split bands enable large magnetotransport responses comparable to ferromagnets despite the negligible spontaneous magnetisation. When the inversion symmetry is further broken by the antiferromagnetic order, the emerging odd-parity multipole order renders the bands spin-degenerate but asymmetric in the momentum space. For such parity-time-symmetric antiferromagnets, it has been predicted that electronic nematicity is induced by current, allowing unconventional nonlinear transport phenomena. However, their experimental evidence has been lacking. Here, we report two-fold nonreciprocal angular magnetoresistance in the tetragonal layered Dirac material SrMnBi₂ with parity-time-symmetric antiferromagnetic order in its Mn-Bi layers. By quantitatively modelling the angular and field dependencies using a phenomenological framework, we reveal that the observed nonreciprocal interlayer resistivity arises from the current-induced breaking of four-fold rotoinversion symmetry of the Dirac valleys in the Bi square net adjacent to the Mn-Bi layer. Furthermore, we demonstrate the alignment of parity-time-symmetric antiferromagnetic domains via current-field cooling, achieving electric-magnetic control of the f-wave polarity in momentum space. The observed switchable nonreciprocal transport associated with current-tuneable valley nematicity paves the way for novel antiferromagnetic spintronic and valleytronic applications.