Tailoring the hybrid anomalous Hall response in engineered magnetic topological insulator heterostructures

DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b04932

Authors: Peng Chen (ShanghaiTech University) , Yong Zhang (ShanghaiTech University) , Qi Yao (ShanghaiTech University) , Fugu Tian (ShanghaiTech University) , Lun Li (ShanghaiTech University) , Zhengkun Qi (ShanghaiTech University) , Xiaoyang Liu (ShanghaiTech University) , Liyang Liao (Tsinghua University) , Cheng Song (Tsinghua University) , Jingyuan Wang (University of California, Irvine) , Jing Xia (University of California, Irvine) , Gang Li (ShanghaiTech University) , David M. Burn (Diamond Light Source) , Gerrit Van Der Laan (Diamond Light Source) , Thorsten Hesjedal (University of Oxford) , Shilei Zhang (ShanghaiTech University) , Xufeng Kou (ShanghaiTech University)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Nano Letters

State: Published (Approved)
Published: February 2020
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 21875 , 23895

Abstract: Engineering the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) is the key to manipulate the magnetic orders in the emerging magnetic topological insulators (MTIs). In this letter, we synthesize the epitaxial Bi2Te3/MnTe magnetic heterostructures and observe pronounced AHE signals from both layers combined together. The evolution of the resulting hybrid AHE intensity with the top Bi2Te3 layer thickness manifests the presence of an intrinsic ferromagnetic phase induced by the topological surface states at the heterolayer interface. More importantly, by doping the Bi2Te3 layer with Sb, we are able to manipulate the sign of the Berry phase-associated AHE component. Our results demonstrate the unparalleled advantages of MTI heterostructures over magnetically doped TI counterparts in which the tunability of the AHE response can be greatly enhanced. This in turn unveils a new avenue for MTI heterostructure-based multifunctional applications.

Journal Keywords: magnetic topological insulators; anomalous Hall effect; heterostructure engineering; molecular beam epitaxy; Berry curvature

Subject Areas: Materials, Physics


Instruments: I10-Beamline for Advanced Dichroism