Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Crossover from 2D Ferromagnetic Insulator to Wide Band Gap Quantum Anomalous Hall Insulator in Ultrathin MnBi2Te4

Journal Article · · ACS Nano
Intrinsic magnetic topological insulators offer low disorder and large magnetic band gaps for robust magnetic topological phases operating at higher temperatures. By controlling the layer thickness, emergent phenomena such as the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect and axion insulator phases have been realized. Furthermore, these observations occur at temperatures significantly lower than the Néel temperature of bulk MnBi2Te4, and measurement of the magnetic energy gap at the Dirac point in ultrathin MnBi2Te4 has yet to be achieved. Critical to achieving the promise of this system is a direct measurement of the layer-dependent energy gap and verification of a temperature-dependent topological phase transition from a large band gap QAH insulator to a gapless TI paramagnetic phase. Here we utilize temperature-dependent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to study epitaxial ultrathin MnBi2Te4. We directly observe a layer-dependent crossover from a 2D ferromagnetic insulator with a band gap greater than 780 meV in one septuple layer (1 SL) to a QAH insulator with a large energy gap (>70 meV) at 8 K in 3 and 5 SL MnBi2Te4. The QAH gap is confirmed to be magnetic in origin, as it becomes gapless with increasing temperature above 8 K.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities Division
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1818276
Journal Information:
ACS Nano, Journal Name: ACS Nano Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 15; ISSN 1936-0851
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (37)

Intrinsic Topological Insulator Bi2Te3 Thin Films on Si and Their Thickness Limit journal July 2010
Enhancing the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect by Magnetic Codoping in a Topological Insulator journal November 2017
Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set journal July 1996
Chemical Aspects of the Candidate Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator MnBi 2 Te 4 journal March 2019
Large-Gap Magnetic Topological Heterostructure Formed by Subsurface Incorporation of a Ferromagnetic Layer journal May 2017
Ferromagnetism in one-dimensional monatomic metal chains journal March 2002
High-precision realization of robust quantum anomalous Hall state in a hard ferromagnetic topological insulator journal March 2015
Dynamical axion field in topological magnetic insulators journal March 2010
Crossover of the three-dimensional topological insulator Bi2Se3 to the two-dimensional limit journal June 2010
Robust axion insulator and Chern insulator phases in a two-dimensional antiferromagnetic topological insulator journal January 2020
Large magnetic gap at the Dirac point in Bi2Te3/MnBi2Te4 heterostructures journal December 2019
Prediction and observation of an antiferromagnetic topological insulator journal December 2019
Magnetic topological insulators journal January 2019
Crystal structure, properties and nanostructuring of a new layered chalcogenide semiconductor, Bi2MnTe4 journal January 2013
Hybrid functionals based on a screened Coulomb potential journal May 2003
A consistent and accurate ab initio parametrization of density functional dispersion correction (DFT-D) for the 94 elements H-Pu journal April 2010
Magnetic modulation doping in topological insulators toward higher-temperature quantum anomalous Hall effect journal November 2015
Imaging Dirac-mass disorder from magnetic dopant atoms in the ferromagnetic topological insulator Cr x (Bi 0.1 Sb 0.9 ) 2-x Te 3 journal January 2015
Understanding band gaps of solids in generalized Kohn–Sham theory journal March 2017
Experimental Realization of an Intrinsic Magnetic Topological Insulator * journal June 2019
Highly-ordered wide bandgap materials for quantized anomalous Hall and magnetoelectric effects journal April 2017
Surface states and Rashba-type spin polarization in antiferromagnetic MnBi 2 Te 4 (0001) journal September 2019
Electron-energy-loss spectra and the structural stability of nickel oxide: An LSDA+U study journal January 1998
Strain-tunable magnetic anisotropy in monolayer CrCl 3 , CrBr 3 , and CrI 3 journal October 2018
Unique Thickness-Dependent Properties of the van der Waals Interlayer Antiferromagnet MnBi 2 Te 4 Films journal March 2019
Topological Axion States in the Magnetic Insulator MnBi 2 Te 4 with the Quantized Magnetoelectric Effect journal May 2019
Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple journal October 1996
Topological Insulators in Three Dimensions journal March 2007
Spin scattering and noncollinear spin structure-induced intrinsic anomalous Hall effect in antiferromagnetic topological insulator MnB i 2 T e 4 journal August 2019
Colloquium: Topological insulators journal November 2010
Intrinsic magnetic topological insulators in van der Waals layered MnBi 2 Te 4 -family materials journal June 2019
Experimental Realization of a Three-Dimensional Topological Insulator, Bi2Te3 journal June 2009
Quantized Anomalous Hall Effect in Magnetic Topological Insulators journal June 2010
Massive Dirac Fermion on the Surface of a Magnetically Doped Topological Insulator journal August 2010
Experimental Observation of the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in a Magnetic Topological Insulator journal March 2013
Chiral Majorana fermion modes in a quantum anomalous Hall insulator–superconductor structure journal July 2017
Quantum anomalous Hall effect in intrinsic magnetic topological insulator MnBi 2 Te 4 journal January 2020