Sliding ferroelectricity induced and switched altermagnetism in GaSe-VPSe3-GaSe sandwiched heterostructure with strong magnetoelectric effect

Magnetoelectric coupling is vital for exploring fundamental science and driving the development of high-density memory and energy-efficient spintronic devices. Altermagnets, which merge the benefits of ferromagnets and antiferromagnets, pave the way for unprecedented magnetoelectric coupling effects. However, the spin splitting in altermagnets is robustly protected by spin space group symmetry, posing a significant challenge for external manipulation. Here, we propose to utilize the coupling between the layer degree of freedom and the altermagnet to achieve an altermagnetic multiferroic with strong magnetoelectric coupling. In the GaSe-VPSe3-GaSe sandwiched structure, the magnetic order can be switched between altermagnetic and conventional antiferromagnetic by controllably breaking and restoring the combined spatial inversion and time-reversal symmetry using sliding ferroelectricity. Moreover, our systematic investigation of all pathways revealed that the transition from a ferroelectric CB stacking, through an antiferroelectric CC stacking, to a ferroelectric BC stacking is the most favorable, with an energy barrier of only 50.13 meV/f.u.. More importantly, we reveal that the microscopic mechanism of the magnetic phase transition stems from the interlayer covalent bonding of Se-Se or Se-P atomic pairs at the interface. Our findings unveil a new form of magnetoelectric coupling and lay the groundwork for designing miniature information processing and multiferroic memory devices based on altermagnetism.