Prediction of Near-Room-Temperature Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect on Honeycomb Materials

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new platform for the quantum anomalous Hall effect on honeycomb materials like Sn and Ge, with large energy gaps and high Curie temperatures, potentially enabling room-temperature applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to realize the quantum anomalous Hall effect at near-room temperatures using surface functionalization of honeycomb lattices, avoiding magnetic doping.

Findings

Large energy gaps of 0.34 eV for Sn and 0.06 eV for Ge.

Estimated Curie temperatures of 243 K for Sn and 509 K for Ge.

Potential for near-room-temperature quantum anomalous Hall effect.

Abstract

Recently, this long-sought quantum anomalous Hall effect was realized in the magnetic topological insulator. However, the requirement of an extremely low temperature (approximately 30 mK) hinders realistic applications. Based on \textit{ab-initio} band structure calculations, we propose a quantum anomalous Hall platform with a large energy gap of 0.34 and 0.06 eV on honeycomb lattices comprised of Sn and Ge, respectively. The ferromagnetic order forms in one sublattice of the honeycomb structure by controlling the surface functionalization rather than dilute magnetic doping, which is expected to be visualized by spin polarized STM in experiment. Strong coupling between the inherent QSH state and ferromagnetism results in considerable exchange splitting and consequently an FM insulator with a large energy gap. The estimated mean-field Curie temperature is 243 and 509 K for Sn and Ge lattices, respectively. The large energy gap and high Curie temperature indicate the feasibility of the QAH effect in the near-room-temperature and even room-temperature regions.