Magnetically induced spin reorientation on the surface of a topological insulator (a surface magnetic topological insulator MBE film)

TL;DR

This study investigates how magnetic doping induces spin reorientation on topological insulator surfaces, revealing out-of-plane spin texture evolution and breaking time-reversal symmetry, with implications for spintronics and quantum devices.

Contribution

It provides the first thorough experimental analysis of magnetically induced spin reorientation on topological insulator surfaces, distinguishing magnetic effects from quantum tunneling phenomena.

Findings

Magnetic doping causes dramatic spin reorientation on TI surfaces.

Quantum tunneling induces spin rearrangement without breaking time-reversal symmetry.

Magnetic interactions lead to out-of-plane spin texture evolution and TRB at a Kramers' point.

Abstract

The surface of topological insulators is proposed as a promising platform for spintronics and quantum information applications. In particular, when time- reversal symmetry is broken, topological surface states are expected to exhibit a wide range of exotic spin phenomena for potential implementation in electronics. Such devices need to be fabricated using nanoscale artificial thin films. It is of critical importance to study the spin behavior of artificial topological MBE thin films associated with magnetic dopants, and with regards to quantum size effects related to surface-to-surface tunneling as well as experimentally isolate time-reversal breaking from non-intrinsic surface electronic gaps. Here we present observation of the first (and thorough) study of magnetically induced spin reorientation phenomena on the surface of a topological insulator. Our results reveal dramatic rearrangements of the spin configuration upon magnetic doping contrasted with chemically similar nonmagnetic doping as well as with quantum tunneling phenomena in ultra-thin high quality MBE films. While we observe that the spin rearrangement induced by quantum tunneling occurs in a time-reversal invariant fashion, we present critical and systematic observation of an out-of-plane spin texture evolution correlated with magnetic interactions, which breaks time-reversal symmetry, demonstrating microscopic TRB at a Kramers' point on the surface.