Robust A-Type Order and Spin-Flop Transition on the Surface of the Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator MnBi2Te4

Sass, Paul M; Kim, Jinwoong; Vanderbilt, David; Yan, jiaqiang; Wu, Weida

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.037201

Title: Robust $A$ -Type Order and Spin-Flop Transition on the Surface of the Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator ${MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}$

Journal Article · Mon Jul 13 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.037201· OSTI ID:1638230

^[1];

^[2];

^[1]

Rutgers Univ., Piscataway, NJ (United States)
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Here, we present microscopic evidence of the persistence of uniaxial A-type antiferromagnetic order to the surface layers of MnBi₂Te₄ single crystals using magnetic force microscopy. Our results reveal termination-dependent magnetic contrast across both surface step edges and domain walls, which can be screened by thin layers of soft magnetism. The robust surface A-type order is further corroborated by the observation of termination-dependent surface spin-flop transitions, which have been theoretically proposed decades ago. Our results not only provide key ingredients for understanding the electronic properties of the antiferromagnetic topological insulator MnBi₂Te₄, but also open a new paradigm for exploring intrinsic surface metamagnetic transitions in natural antiferromagnets.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: Rutgers Univ., Piscataway, NJ (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0018153; AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1638230

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1648859

Journal Information:: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 125, Issue 3; ISSN 0031-9007

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 41 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (36)

Surface Spin-Flop State in a Simple Antiferromagnet Mills, D. L. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 20, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.20.18	journal	January 1968
Topological antiferromagnetic spintronics Šmejkal, Libor; Mokrousov, Yuriy; Yan, Binghai Nature Physics, Vol. 14, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0064-5	journal	March 2018
Gapless Surface Dirac Cone in Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator ${MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}$ Hao, Yu-Jie; Liu, Pengfei; Feng, Yue Physical Review X, Vol. 9, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.9.041038	journal	November 2019
Dirac Surface States in Intrinsic Magnetic Topological Insulators EuSn 2 As 2 and MnBi 2 n Te 3 n + 1 Li, Hang; Gao, Shun-Ye; Duan, Shao-Feng Physical Review X, Vol. 9, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.9.041039	journal	November 2019
Evolution of structural, magnetic, and transport properties in ${MnBi}_{2 - x} {Sb}_{x} {Te}_{4}$ Yan, J. -Q.; Okamoto, S.; McGuire, M. A. Physical Review B, Vol. 100, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.104409	journal	September 2019
Experimental Observation of the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in a Magnetic Topological Insulator Chang, C. -Z.; Zhang, J.; Feng, X. Science, Vol. 340, Issue 6129 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1234414	journal	March 2013
Surface spin-flop transition in Fe/Cr(211) superlattices: Experiment and theory Wang, R. W.; Mills, D. L.; Fullerton, Eric E. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 72, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.72.920	journal	February 1994
Dynamics of the Antiferromagnetic Spin-Flop Transition Keffer, F.; Chow, H. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 31, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.31.1061	journal	October 1973
Visualization of superparamagnetic dynamics in magnetic topological insulators Lachman, Ella O.; Young, Andrea F.; Richardella, Anthony Science Advances, Vol. 1, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500740	journal	November 2015
Experimental Realization of an Intrinsic Magnetic Topological Insulator ^* Gong, Yan; Guo, Jingwen; Li, Jiaheng Chinese Physics Letters, Vol. 36, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1088/0256-307X/36/7/076801	journal	June 2019
Collective Magnetism at Multiferroic Vortex Domain Walls Geng, Yanan; Lee, N.; Choi, Y. J. Nano Letters, Vol. 12, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1021/nl301432z	journal	February 2012
MFM observation of perpendicular magnetization and antiferromagnetically coupled domains in Co/Ru superlattices Hamada, S.; Himi, K.; Okuno, T. Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, Vol. 240, Issue 1-3 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-8853(01)00864-2	journal	February 2002
Gapless Dirac surface states in the antiferromagnetic topological insulator ${MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}$ Swatek, Przemyslaw; Wu, Yun; Wang, Lin-Lin Physical Review B, Vol. 101, Issue 16 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.101.161109	journal	April 2020
Surfaces of axion insulators Varnava, Nicodemos; Vanderbilt, David Physical Review B, Vol. 98, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.98.245117	journal	December 2018
Crystal growth and magnetic structure of ${MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}$ Yan, J. -Q.; Zhang, Q.; Heitmann, T. Physical Review Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.064202	journal	June 2019
Trajectory of the anomalous Hall effect towards the quantized state in a ferromagnetic topological insulator Checkelsky, J. G.; Yoshimi, R.; Tsukazaki, A. Nature Physics, Vol. 10, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3053	journal	August 2014
Metal-to-insulator switching in quantum anomalous Hall states Kou, Xufeng; Pan, Lei; Wang, Jing Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9474	journal	October 2015
Quantum anomalous Hall effect in intrinsic magnetic topological insulator MnBi ₂ Te ₄ Deng, Yujun; Yu, Yijun; Shi, Meng Zhu Science, Vol. 367, Issue 6480 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax8156	journal	January 2020
Robust axion insulator and Chern insulator phases in a two-dimensional antiferromagnetic topological insulator Liu, Chang; Wang, Yongchao; Li, Hao Nature Materials https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0573-3	journal	January 2020
Antiferromagnetic topological insulators Mong, Roger S. K.; Essin, Andrew M.; Moore, Joel E. Physical Review B, Vol. 81, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.81.245209	journal	June 2010
Enhancing the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect by Magnetic Codoping in a Topological Insulator Ou, Yunbo; Liu, Chang; Jiang, Gaoyuan Advanced Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201703062	journal	November 2017
Topological Electronic Structure and Its Temperature Evolution in Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator MnBi 2 Te 4 Chen, Y. J.; Xu, L. X.; Li, J. H. Physical Review X, Vol. 9, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.9.041040	journal	November 2019
Surface spin-flop transition in an antiferromagnet Morosov, Aleksandr I.; Sigov, Aleksandr S. Physics-Uspekhi, Vol. 53, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.3367/UFNe.0180.201007b.0709	journal	October 2010
Model for a Quantum Hall Effect without Landau Levels: Condensed-Matter Realization of the "Parity Anomaly" Haldane, F. D. M. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 61, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.61.2015	journal	October 1988
Magnetic Imaging of Domain Walls in the Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator MnBi ₂ Te ₄ Sass, Paul M.; Ge, Wenbo; Yan, Jiaqiang Nano Letters, Vol. 20, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c00114	journal	March 2020
Magnetic modulation doping in topological insulators toward higher-temperature quantum anomalous Hall effect Mogi, M.; Yoshimi, R.; Tsukazaki, A. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4935075	journal	November 2015
Magnetic properties of finite antiferromagnetic superlattices: Statics, dynamics, and the surface spin-flop phase Wang, R. W.; Mills, D. L. Physical Review B, Vol. 50, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.50.3931	journal	August 1994
Prediction and observation of an antiferromagnetic topological insulator Otrokov, M. M.; Klimovskikh, I. I.; Bentmann, H. Nature, Vol. 576, Issue 7787 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1840-9	journal	December 2019
Domain Walls in Antiferromagnetically Coupled Multilayer Films Hellwig, Olav; Berger, Andreas; Fullerton, Eric E. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 91, Issue 19 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.197203	journal	November 2003
Development of ferromagnetism in the doped topological insulator ${Bi}_{2 - x} {Mn}_{x} {Te}_{3}$ Hor, Y. S.; Roushan, P.; Beidenkopf, H. Physical Review B, Vol. 81, Issue 19 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.81.195203	journal	May 2010
Direct evidence of ferromagnetism in a quantum anomalous Hall system Wang, Wenbo; Ou, Yunbo; Liu, Chang Nature Physics, Vol. 14, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0149-1	journal	May 2018
Surface spin–flop transition in a uniaxial antiferromagnetic Fe/Cr superlattice induced by a magnetic field of arbitrary direction Pini, M. G.; Rettori, A.; Betti, P. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 19, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1088/0953-8984/19/13/136001	journal	March 2007
Unique Thickness-Dependent Properties of the van der Waals Interlayer Antiferromagnet ${MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}$ Films Otrokov, M. M.; Rusinov, I. P.; Blanco-Rey, M. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 122, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.107202	journal	March 2019
Zero-Field Dissipationless Chiral Edge Transport and the Nature of Dissipation in the Quantum Anomalous Hall State Chang, Cui-Zu; Zhao, Weiwei; Kim, Duk Y. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 115, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.057206	journal	July 2015
Antiferromagnetic domain wall control via surface spin flop in fully tunable synthetic antiferromagnets with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy Böhm, Benny; Fallarino, Lorenzo; Pohl, Darius Physical Review B, Vol. 100, Issue 14 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.140411	journal	October 2019
Reorientation in antiferromagnetic multilayers: Spin-flop transition and surface effects Rößler, Ulrich K.; Bogdanov, Alexei N. physica status solidi (c), Vol. 1, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1002/pssc.200405441	journal	December 2004

Similar Records

Direct Visualization of Surface Spin-Flip Transition in MnBi4Te7

Journal Article · Thu Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Physical Review Letters · OSTI ID:1638230

Ge, Wenbo; Kim, Jinwoong; Chan, Ying-Ting; +3 more

Gapless Dirac surface states in the antiferromagnetic topological insulator

{MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}

Journal Article · Thu Apr 16 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Physical Review B · OSTI ID:1638230

Swatek, Przemyslaw; Wu, Yun; Wang, Lin-Lin; +4 more

Crystal growth and magnetic structure of

{MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}

Journal Article · Fri Jun 07 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Physical Review Materials · OSTI ID:1638230

Yan, Jiaqiang; Zhang, Qiang; Heitmann, Thomas; +7 more

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
MnBi2Te4
antiferromagnetic topological insulator
magnetic force microscopy
surface spin-flop transition
A-type antiferromagnetic order

Title: Robust A -Type Order and Spin-Flop Transition on the Surface of the Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator MnBi 2 Te 4

Citation Formats

References (36)

Similar Records

Related Subjects

Title: Robust $A$ -Type Order and Spin-Flop Transition on the Surface of the Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator ${MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}$