Liguo Zhang

Fully gapped topological surface states in Bi2Se3 films induced by ad-wave high-temperature superconductor

By growing a topological insulator on top of a high-temperature superconducting substrate it is possible to induce superconductivity in the surface states of the topological insulator. Moreover, the pairing symmetry of the induced superconductivity is s-wave, unlike the d-wave symmetry of the substrate.

Observation of the Zero Hall Plateau in a Quantum Anomalous Hall Insulator.

We report experimental investigations on the quantum phase transition between the two opposite Hall plateaus of a quantum anomalous Hall insulator. We observe a well-defined plateau with zero Hall conductivity over a range of magnetic field around coercivity when the magnetization reverses. The features of the zero Hall plateau are shown to be closely related to that of the quantum anomalous Hall effect, but its temperature evolution exhibits a significant difference from the network model for a conventional quantum Hall plateau transition. We propose that the chiral edge states residing at the magnetic domain boundaries, which are unique to a quantum anomalous Hall insulator, are responsible for the novel features of the zero Hall plateau.

Thickness Dependence of the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in Magnetic Topological Insulator Films

The evolution of the quantum anomalous Hall effect with the thickness of Cr-doped (Bi,Sb)2 Te3 magnetic topological insulator films is studied, revealing how the effect is caused by the interplay of the surface states, band-bending, and ferromagnetic exchange energy. Homogeneity in ferromagnetism is found to be the key to high-temperature quantum anomalous Hall material.

Heavily Cr-doped (Bi,Sb)2Te3 as a ferromagnetic insulator with electrically tunable conductivity

With molecular beam epitaxy we have grown Cry(BixSb1-x)2-yTe3 thin films with homogeneous distribution of Cr dopants and Curie temperature up to 77 K. The films with Cr concentration y ≥ 0.39 are found to be topologically trivial, highly insulating ferromagnets, whose conductivity can be tuned over two orders of magnitude by gate voltage. The ferromagnetic insulators with electrically tunable conductivity can be used to realize the quantum anomalous Hall effect at higher temperature in topological insulator heterostructures and to develop field effect devices for spintronic applications.

Photoinduced Inverse Spin Hall Effect of Surface States in the Topological Insulator Bi2Se3

The three-dimensional (3D) topological insulator (TI) Bi2Se3 exhibits topologically protected, linearly dispersing Dirac surface states (SSs). To access the intriguing properties of these SSs, it is important to distinguish them from the coexisting two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) on the surface. Here, we use circularly polarized light to induce the inverse spin Hall effect in a Bi2Se3 thin film at different temperatures (i.e., from 77 to 300 K). It is demonstrated that the photoinduced inverse spin Hall effect (PISHE) of the top SSs and the 2DEG can be separated based on their opposite signs. The temperature and power dependence of the PISHE also confirms our method. Furthermore, it is found that the PISHE in the 2DEG is dominated by the extrinsic mechanism, as revealed by the temperature dependence of the PISHE.

Ferromagnetism in vanadium-doped Bi2Se3 topological insulator films

With molecular beam epitaxy, we grew uniformly vanadium-doped Bi2Se3 films which exhibit ferromagnetism with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. A systematic study on the magneto-transport properties of the films revealed the crucial role of topological surface states in ferromagnetic coupling. The enhanced ferromagnetism with reduced carrier density can support quantum anomalous Hall phase in the films, though the anomalous Hall resistance is far from quantization due to high carrier density. The topological surface states of films exhibit a gap of ∼180 meV which is unlikely to be magnetically induced but may significantly influence the quantum anomalous Hall effect in the system.

Observation of unconventional anomalous Hall effect in epitaxial CrTe thin films

We have studied the magnetic and electrical transport properties of epitaxial NiAs-type CrTe thin films grown on SrTiO3(111) substrates. Unlike rectangle hysteresis loops obtained from magnetic measurements, we have identified intriguing extra bump/dip features from anomalous Hall experiments on the films with thicknesses less than 12 nm. This observed Hall anomaly is phenomenologically consistent with the occurrence of a topological Hall effect(THE) in chiral magnets with a skyrmion phase. Furthermore, the THE contribution can be tuned by the film thickness, showing the key contribution of asymmetric interfaces in stabilizing Néel-type skyrmions. Our work demonstrates that a CrTe thin film on SrTiO3(111) substrates is a good material candidate for studying real-space topological transport.

AlO x /LiF composite protection layer for Cr-doped (Bi,Sb)2Te3 quantum anomalous Hall films*

We have realized robust quantum anomalous Hall samples by protecting Cr-doped (Bi,Sb)2Te3 topological insulator films with a combination of LiF and AlO x capping layers. The AlO x /LiF composite capping layer well keeps the quantum anomalous Hall states of Cr-doped (Bi,Sb)2Te3 films and effectively prevent them from degradation induced by ambient conditions. The progress is a key step towards the realization of the quantum phenomena in heterostructures and devices based on quantum anomalous Hall system.