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Abstract Covalent 2D magnets such as Cr2Te3, which feature self‐intercalated magnetic cations located between monolayers of transition‐metal dichalcogenide material, offer a unique platform for controlling magnetic order and spin texture, enabling new potential applications for spintronic devices. Here, it is demonstrated that the unconventional anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in Cr2Te3, characterized by additional humps and dips near the coercive field in AHE hysteresis, originates from an intrinsic mechanism dictated by the self‐intercalation. This mechanism is distinctly different from previously proposed mechanisms such as topological Hall effect, or two‐channel AHE arising from spatial inhomogeneities. Crucially, multiple Weyl‐like nodes emerge in the electronic band structure due to strong spin‐orbit coupling, whose positions relative to the Fermi level is sensitively modulated by the canting angles of the self‐intercalated Cr cations. These nodes contribute strongly to the Berry curvature and AHE conductivity. This component competes with the contribution from bands that are less affected by the self‐intercalation, resulting in a sign change in AHE with temperature and the emergence of additional humps and dips. The findings provide compelling evidence for the intrinsic origin of the unconventional AHE in Cr2Te3 and further establish self‐intercalation as a control knob for engineering AHE in complex magnets.
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Ultrafast photoinduced band splitting and carrier dynamics in chiral tellurium nanosheets
Abstract Trigonal tellurium (Te) is a chiral semiconductor that lacks both mirror and inversion symmetries, resulting in complex band structures with Weyl crossings and unique spin textures. Detailed time-resolved polarized reflectance spectroscopy is used to investigate its band structure and carrier dynamics. The polarized transient spectra reveal optical transitions between the uppermost spin-splitH4andH5and the degenerateH6valence bands (VB) and the lowest degenerateH6conduction band (CB) as well as a higher energy transition at the L-point. Surprisingly, the degeneracy of theH6CB (a proposed Weyl node) is lifted and the spin-split VB gap is reduced upon photoexcitation before relaxing to equilibrium as the carriers decay. Using ab initio density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we conclude that the dynamic band structure is caused by a photoinduced shear strain in the Te film that breaks the screw symmetry of the crystal. The band-edge anisotropy is also reflected in the hot carrier decay rate, which is a factor of two slower along the c-axis than perpendicular to it. The majority of photoexcited carriers near the band-edge are seen to recombine within 30 ps while higher lying transitions observed near 1.2 eV appear to have substantially longer lifetimes, potentially due to contributions of intervalley processes in the recombination rate. These new findings shed light on the strong correlation between photoinduced carriers and electronic structure in anisotropic crystals, which opens a potential pathway for designing novel Te-based devices that take advantage of the topological structures as well as strong spin-related properties.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1762698
- PAR ID:
- 10182588
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2041-1723
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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