Search Results
Intermixing-Driven Surface and Bulk Ferromagnetism in the Quantum Anomalous Hall Candidate MnBi6Te10
The recent realizations of the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) in MnBi2Te4 and MnBi4Te7 benchmark the (MnBi2Te4)(Bi2Te3)n family as a promising hotbed for further QAHE improvements. The family owes its potential to its ferromagnetically (FM) ordered MnBi2Te4 septuple layers (SLs). However, the QAHE realization is complicated in MnBi2Te4 and MnBi4Te7 due to the substantial antiferromagnetic (AFM) coupling between the SLs. An FM state, advantageous for the QAHE, can be stabilized by interlacing the SLs with an increasing number n of Bi2Te3 quintuple layers (QLs). However, the mechanisms driving the FM state and the number of necessary QLs are not understood, and the surface magnetism remains obscure. Here, robust FM properties in MnBi6Te10 (n = 2) with Tc ≈ 12 K are demonstrated and their origin is established in the Mn/Bi intermixing phenomenon by a combined experimental and theoretical study. The measurements reveal a magnetically intact surface with a large magnetic moment, and with FM properties similar to the bulk. This investigation thus consolidates the MnBi6Te10 system as perspective for the QAHE at elevated temperatures.
Tunable chirality of noncentrosymmetric magnetic Weyl semimetals in rare-earth carbides
Even if Weyl semimetals are characterized by quasiparticles with well-defined chirality, exploiting this experimentally is severely hampered by Weyl lattice fermions coming in pairs with opposite chirality, typically causing the net chirality picked up by experimental probes to vanish. Here, we show this issue can be circumvented in a controlled manner when both time-reversal- and inversion symmetry are broken. To this end, we investigate chirality disbalance in the carbide family RMC2 (R a rare-earth and M a transition metal), showing several members to be Weyl semimetals. Using the noncentrosymmetric ferromagnet NdRhC2 as an illustrating example, we show that an odd number of Weyl nodes can be stabilized at its Fermi surface by properly tilting its magnetization. The chiral configuration endows a topological phase transition as the Weyl node transitions across the Fermi sheets, which triggers interesting chiral electromagnetic responses. Further, the tilt direction determines the sign of the resulting net chirality, opening up a simple route to control its sign and strength.
Engineering a pure Dirac regime in ZrTe5
Real-world topological semimetals typically exhibit Dirac and Weyl nodes that coexist with trivial Fermi pockets. This tends to mask the physics of the relativistic quasiparticles. Using the example of ZrTe5, we show that strain provides a powerful tool for in-situ tuning of the band structure such that all trivial pockets are pushed far away from the Fermi energy, but only for a certain range of Van der Waals gaps. Our results naturally reconcile contradicting reports on the presence or absence of additional pockets in ZrTe5, and provide a clear map of where to find a pure three-dimensional Dirac semimetallic phase in the structural parameter space of the material.
Chirality flip of Weyl nodes and its manifestation in strained MoTe2
Due to their topological charge, or chirality, the Weyl cones present in topological semimetals are considered robust against arbitrary perturbations. One well-understood exception to this robustness is the pairwise creation or annihilation of Weyl cones, which involves the overlap of two oppositely charged nodes in energy and momentum. Here we show that their topological charge can in fact change sign, in a process that involves the merging of not two, but three Weyl nodes. This is facilitated by the presence of rotation and time-reversal symmetries, which constrain the relative positions of Weyl cones in momentum space. We analyze the chirality flip process, showing that transport properties distinguish it from the conventional, double Weyl merging. Moreover, we predict that the chirality flip occurs in MoTe$_2$, where experimentally accessible strain leads to the merging of three Weyl cones close to the Fermi level. Our work sets the stage to further investigate and observe such chirality flipping processes in different topological materials.
Creating Weyl nodes and controlling their energy by magnetization rotation
As they do not rely on the presence of any crystal symmetry, Weyl nodes are robust topological features of an electronic structure that can occur at any momentum and energy. Acting as sinks and sources of Berry curvature, Weyl nodes have been predicted to strongly affect the transverse electronic response, like in the anomalous Hall or Nernst effects. However, to observe large anomalous effects the Weyl nodes need to be close to or at the Fermi level, which implies the band structure must be tuned by an external parameter, e.g., chemical doping. Here we show that in a ferromagnetic metal tuning of the Weyl node energy and momentum can be achieved by rotation of the magnetization. First, taking as example the elementary magnet hcp-Co, we use electronic structure calculations based on density-functional theory to show that by canting the magnetization away from the easy axis, Weyl nodes can be driven exactly to the Fermi surface. Second, we show that the same phenomenology applies to the kagome ferromagnet Co3Sn2S2, in which we additionally show how the dynamics in energy and momentum of the Weyl nodes affects the calculated anomalous Hall and Nernst conductivities. Our results highlight how the intrinsic magnetic anisotropy can be used to engineer Weyl physics.
Magnetic warping in topological insulators
We analyze the electronic structure of topological surface states in the family of magnetic topological insulators MnBi2nTe3n+1. We show that, at natural-cleavage surfaces, the Dirac cone warping changes its symmetry from hexagonal to trigonal at the magnetic ordering temperature. In particular, an energy splitting develops between the surface states of the same band index but opposite surface momenta upon formation of the long-range magnetic order. As a consequence, measurements of such energy splittings constitute a simple protocol to detect the magnetic ordering via the surface electronic structure, alternative to the detection of the surface magnetic gap. Interestingly, while the latter signals a nonzero surface magnetization, the trigonal warping predicted here is, in addition, sensitive to the direction of the surface magnetic flux. Our results may be particularly useful when the Dirac point is buried in the projection of the bulk states, caused by certain terminations of the crystal or in hole-doped systems, since in both situations the surface magnetic gap itself is not accessible in photoemission experiments.
Finite temperature fluctuation-induced order and responses in magnetic topological insulators
We derive an effective field theory model for magnetic topological insulators and predict that a magnetic electronic gap persists on the surface for temperatures above the ordering temperature of the bulk. Our analysis also applies to interfaces of heterostructures consisting of a ferromagnetic and a topological insulator. In order to make quantitative predictions for MnBi2Te4 and for EuS-Bi2Se3 heterostructures, we combine the effective field theory method with density functional theory and Monte Carlo simulations. For MnBi2Te4 we predict an upwards Néel temperature shift at the surface up to 15%, while the EuS-Bi2Se3 interface exhibits a smaller relative shift. The effective theory also predicts induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions and a topological magnetoelectric effect, both of which feature a finite temperature and chemical potential dependence.