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

R. D. Gonzalez Betancourt, J. Zubáč, R. Gonzalez-Hernandez, K. Geishendorf, Z. Šobáň, G. Springholz, K. Olejník, L. Šmejkal, J. Sinova, T. Jungwirth, S. T. B. Goennenwein, A. Thomas, H. Reichlová, J. Železný, and D. Kriegner

Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 036702 – Published 20 January 2023

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.

Received 31 May 2022
Revised 10 October 2022
Accepted 21 December 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.036702

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Anomalous Hall effect Electronic structure First-principles calculations Hall effect Magnetism Magnetotransport Spintronics

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

R. D. Gonzalez Betancourt ^1,2,3, J. Zubáč ^2,4, R. Gonzalez-Hernandez^5,*, K. Geishendorf², Z. Šobáň², G. Springholz ⁶, K. Olejník², L. Šmejkal^7,2, J. Sinova^7,2, T. Jungwirth^2,8, S. T. B. Goennenwein ^9,1, A. Thomas ^1,3, H. Reichlová¹, J. Železný², and D. Kriegner ^1,2,†

¹Institute of Solid State and Materials Physics, Technical University Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
²Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Cukrovarnická 10, 162 00 Praha 6, Czech Republic
³Leibniz Institute of Solid State and Materials Research (IFW Dresden), Helmholtzstr. 20, 01069 Dresden, Germany
⁴Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Ke Karlovu 3, 121 16 Prague 2, Czech Republic
⁵Departamento de Fisica y Geociencias, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla 080020, Colombia
⁶Institute of Semiconductor and Solid State Physics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenbergerstr. 69, 4040 Linz, Austria
⁷Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany
⁸School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom
⁹Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany

^*rhernandezj@uninorte.edu.co
^†kriegner@fzu.cz

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Vol. 130, Iss. 3 — 20 January 2023

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