Spontaneous Anomalous Hall Effect Arising from an Unconventional Compensated Magnetic Phase in a Semiconductor

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

The anomalous Hall effect, commonly observed in metallic magnets, has been established to originate from the time-reversal symmetry breaking by an internal macroscopic magnetization in ferromagnets or by a noncollinear magnetic order. Here we observe a spontaneous anomalous Hall signal in the absence of an external magnetic field in an epitaxial film of MnTe, which is a semiconductor with a collinear antiparallel magnetic ordering of Mn moments and a vanishing net magnetization. The anomalous Hall effect arises from an unconventional phase with strong time-reversal symmetry breaking and alternating spin polarization in real-space crystal structure and momentum-space electronic structure. The anisotropic crystal environment of magnetic Mn atoms due to the nonmagnetic Te atoms is essential for establishing the unconventional phase and generating the anomalous Hall effect.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number036702
JournalPhysical review letters
Volume130
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 20 Jan 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85147197292
WOS 000939267000002
Mendeley 889421cc-c85f-3b26-b5c3-5cbdcbc71aa2

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Electronic-structure, Total-energy