No Arabic abstract
A topological insulator doped with random magnetic impurities is studied. The system is modelled by the Kane-Mele model with a random spin exchange between conduction electrons and magnetic dopants. The dynamical mean field theory for disordered systems is used to investigate the electron dynamics. The magnetic long-range order and the topological invariant are calculated within the mean field theory. They reveal a rich phase diagram, where different magnetic long-range orders such as antiferromagnetic or ferromagnetic one can exist in the metallic or insulating phases, depending on electron and magnetic impurity fillings. It is found that insulator only occurs at electron half filling, quarter filling and when electron filling is equal to magnetic impurity filling. However, non-trivial topology is observed only in half-filling antiferromagnetic insulator and quarter-filling ferromagnetic insulator. At electron half filling, the spin Hall conductance is quantized and it is robust against magnetic doping, while at electron quarter filling, magnetic dopants drive the ferromagnetic topological insulator to ferromagnetic metal. The quantum anomalous Hall effect is observed only at electron quarter filling and dense magnetic doping.
Motivated by the discovery of the quantum anomalous Hall effect in Cr-doped ce{(Bi,Sb)2Te3} thin films, we study the generic states for magnetic topological insulators and explore the physical properties for both magnetism and itinerant electrons. First-principles calculations are exploited to investigate the magnetic interactions between magnetic Co atoms adsorbed on the ce{Bi2Se3} (111) surface. Due to the absence of inversion symmetry on the surface, there are Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya-like twisted spin interactions between the local moments of Co ions. These nonferromagnetic interactions twist the collinear spin configuration of the ferromagnet and generate various magnetic orders beyond a simple ferromagnet. Among them, the spin spiral state generates alternating counterpropagating modes across each period of spin states, and the skyrmion lattice even supports a chiral mode around the core of each skyrmion. The skyrmion lattice opens a gap at the surface Dirac point, resulting in the anomalous Hall effect. These results may inspire further experimental investigation of magnetic topological insulators.
Topological insulators interacting with magnetic impurities have been reported to host several unconventional effects. These phenomena are described within the framework of gapping Dirac quasiparticles due to broken time-reversal symmetry. However, the overwhelming majority of studies demonstrate the presence of a finite density of states near the Dirac point even once Topological insulators become magnetic. Here, we map the response of topological states to magnetic impurities at the atomic scale. We demonstrate that magnetic order and gapless states can coexist. We show how this is the result of the delicate balance between two opposite trends, i.e. gap opening and emergence of a Dirac node impurity band, both induced by the magnetic dopants. Our results evidence a more intricate and rich scenario with respect to the once generally assumed, showing how different electronic and magnetic states may be generated and controlled in this fascinating class of materials.
The effects of Hubbard-type on-site interactions on the BHZ model is studied in this paper for model parameters appropriate for the HgTe/CdTe quantum well. Within a simple mean field theory we search for plausible magnetic instabilities in the model and find that the ground state becomes {em ferromagnetic} when the interaction strength between electrons in hole orbital is strong enough. The result can be understood by an approximate mapping of the Hubbard-BHZ model to the one band Hubbard model. The same mapping suggests that the magnetic and/or other ordered phases are more likely to occur in large gap topological insulators whose occupations are close to 1/2 for both electron and hole orbital.
Since the discovery of the quantum anomalous Hall effect in the magnetically doped topological insulators (MTI) Cr:(Bi,Sb)$_2$Te$_3$ and V:(Bi,Sb)$_2$Te$_3$, the search for the exchange coupling mechanisms underlying the onset of ferromagnetism has been a central issue, and a variety of different scenarios have been put forward. By combining resonant photoemission, X-ray magnetic dichroism and multiplet ligand field theory, we determine the local electronic and magnetic configurations of V and Cr impurities in (Bi,Sb)$_2$Te$_3$. While strong pd hybridisation is found for both dopant types, their 3d densities of states show pronounced differences. State-of-the-art first-principles calculations show how these impurity states mediate characteristic short-range pd exchange interactions, whose strength sensitively varies with the position of the 3d states relative to the Fermi level. Measurements on films with varying host stoichiometry support this trend. Our results establish the essential role of impurity-state mediated exchange interactions in the magnetism of MTI.
The recent discovery of magnetic topological insulators has opened new avenues to explore exotic states of matter that can emerge from the interplay between topological electronic states and magnetic degrees of freedom, be it ordered or strongly fluctuating. Motivated by the effects that the dynamics of the magnetic moments can have on the topological surface states, we investigate the magnetic fluctuations across the (MnBi$_{text{2}}$Te$_{text{4}}$)(Bi$_{text{2}}$Te$_{text{3}}$)$_{text{n}}$ family. Our paramagnetic electron spin resonance experiments reveal contrasting Mn spin dynamics in different compounds, which manifests in a strongly anisotropic Mn spin relaxation in MnBi$_{text{2}}$Te$_{text{4}}$ while being almost isotropic in MnBi$_{text{4}}$Te$_{text{7}}$. Our density-functional calculations explain these striking observations in terms of the sensitivity of the local electronic structure to the Mn spin-orientation, and indicate that the anisotropy of the magnetic fluctuations can be controlled by the carrier density, which may directly affect the electronic topological surface states.