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An axion insulator is a three-dimensional (3D) topological insulator (TI), in which the bulk maintains the time-reversal symmetry or inversion symmetry but the surface states are gapped by surface magnetization. The axion insulator state has been observed in molecular beam epitaxy (MBE)-grown magnetically doped TI sandwiches and exfoliated intrinsic magnetic TI MnBi2Te4 flakes with an even number layer. All these samples have a thickness of ~ 10nm, near the 2D-to-3D boundary. The coupling between the top and bottom surface states in thin samples may hinder the observation of quantized topological magnetoelectric response. Here, we employMBE to synthesize magnetic TI sandwich heterostructures and find that the axion insulator state persists in a 3D sample with a thickness of ~ 106 nm. Our transport results show that the axion insulator state starts to emerge when the thickness of the middle undoped TI layer is greater than ~ 3 nm. The 3D hundred-nanometer-thick axion insulator provides a promising platform for the exploration of the topological magnetoelectric effect and other emergent magnetic topological states, such as the high-order TI phase.
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Electrically Controlled Anomalous Hall Effect and Orbital Magnetization in Topological Magnet MnBi2Te4
We propose an intrinsic mechanism to understand the even-odd effect, namely, opposite signs of anomalous Hall resistance and different shapes of hysteresis loops for even and odd septuple layers (SLs), of MBE-grown MnBi2Te4 thin films with electron doping. The nonzero hysteresis loops in the anomalous Hall effect and magnetic circular dichroism for even-SLs MnBi2Te4 films originate from two different antiferromagnetic (AFM) configurations with different zeroth Landau level energies of surface states. The complex form of the anomalous Hall hysteresis loop can be understood from two magnetic transitions, a transition between two AFM states followed by a second transition to the ferromagnetic state. Our model also clarifies the relationship and distinction between axion parameter and magnetoelectric coefficient, and shows an even-odd oscillation behavior of magnetoelectric coefficients in MnBi2Te4 films.
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- PAR ID:
- 10497162
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Physical Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Letters
- Volume:
- 132
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 0031-9007
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 066604
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.066604
