The quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) state is a two-dimensional topological insulating state that has quantized Hall resistance of h/Ce 2 and vanishing longitudinal resistance under zero magnetic field, where C is called the Chern number 1,2 . The QAH effect has been realized in magnetic topological insulators (TIs) 3-9 and magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene 10,11 . Despite considerable experimental efforts, the zero magnetic field QAH effect has so far been realized only for C = 1. Here we used molecular beam epitaxy to fabricate magnetic TI multilayers and realized the QAH effect with tunable Chern number C up to 5. The Chern number of these QAH insulators is tuned by varying the magnetic doping concentration or the thickness of the interior magnetic TI layers in the multilayer samples. A theoretical model is developed to understand our experimental observations and establish phase diagrams for QAH insulators with tunable Chern numbers. The realization of QAH insulators with high tunable Chern numbers facilitates the potential applications of dissipationless chiral edge currents in energy-
Recently, MnBi 2 Te 4 has been demonstrated to be an intrinsic magnetic topological insulator and the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect was observed in exfoliated MnBi 2 Te 4 flakes. Here, we used molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to grow MnBi 2 Te 4 films with thickness down to 1 septuple layer (SL) and performed thickness-dependent transport measurements. We observed a nonsquare hysteresis loop in the antiferromagnetic state for films with thickness greater than 2 SL. The hysteresis loop can be separated into two AH components. We demonstrated that one AH component with the larger coercive field is from the dominant MnBi 2 Te 4 phase, whereas the other AH component with the smaller coercive field is from the minor Mn-doped Bi 2 Te 3 phase. The extracted AH component of the MnBi 2 Te 4 phase shows a clear even− odd layer-dependent behavior. Our studies reveal insights on how to optimize the MBE growth conditions to improve the quality of MnBi 2 Te 4 films.
The Berry phase picture provides important insights into the electronic properties of condensed matter systems. The intrinsic anomalous Hall (AH) effect can be understood as the consequence of non-zero Berry curvature in momentum space. Here, we fabricate TI/magnetic TI heterostructures and find that the sign of the AH effect in the magnetic TI layer can be changed from being positive to negative with increasing the thickness of the top TI layer. Our first-principles calculations show that the built-in electric fields at the TI/magnetic TI interface influence the band structure of the magnetic TI layer, and thus lead to a reconstruction of the Berry curvature in the heterostructure samples. Based on the interface-induced AH effect with a negative sign in TI/V-doped TI bilayer structures, we create an artificial “topological Hall effect”-like feature in the Hall trace of the V-doped TI/TI/Cr-doped TI sandwich heterostructures. Our study provides a new route to create the Berry curvature change in magnetic topological materials that may lead to potential technological applications.
Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides MX
2
(M = Mo, W, X = S, Se, Te) attracts enormous research interests in recent years. Its 2H phase possesses an indirect to direct bandgap transition in 2D limit, and thus shows great application potentials in optoelectronic devices. The 1T′ crystalline phase transition can drive the monolayer MX
2
to be a 2D topological insulator. Here we realized the molecular beam epitaxial (MBE) growth of both the 1T′ and 2H phase monolayer WSe
2
on bilayer graphene (BLG) substrate. The crystalline structures of these two phases were characterized using scanning tunneling microscopy. The monolayer 1T′-WSe
2
was found to be metastable, and can transform into 2H phase under post-annealing procedure. The phase transition temperature of 1T′-WSe
2
grown on BLG is lower than that of 1T′ phase grown on 2H-WSe
2
layers. This thermo-driven crystalline phase transition makes the monolayer WSe
2
to be an ideal platform for the controlling of topological phase transitions in 2D materials family.
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