Proximity Driven Enhanced Magnetic Order at Ferromagnetic Insulator / Magnetic Topological Insulator Interface

TL;DR

This study demonstrates a significant enhancement of magnetic exchange coupling at a magnetic insulator / magnetic topological insulator interface, revealing new ways to engineer magnetic order for low-energy quantum devices.

Contribution

It reports a dramatic enhancement of proximity exchange coupling in a V-doped Sb$_{2}$Te$_3$ topological insulator interfaced with EuS, revealing an artificial antiferromagnetic-like structure.

Findings

Enhanced proximity exchange coupling observed

Artificial antiferromagnetic-like structure near interface

Insights into controllable magnetic order engineering

Abstract

Magnetic exchange driven proximity effect at a magnetic insulator / topological insulator (MI/TI) interface provides a rich playground for novel phenomena as well as a way to realize low energy dissipation quantum devices. Here we report a dramatic enhancement of proximity exchange coupling in the MI / magnetic-TI EuS / Sb$_{2-x}$V$_x$Te$_3$ hybrid heterostructure, where V doping is used to drive the TI (Sb$_{2}$Te$_3$) magnetic. We observe an artificial antiferromagnetic-like structure near the MI/TI interface, which may account for the enhanced proximity coupling. The interplay between the proximity effect and doping provides insights into controllable engineering of magnetic order using a hybrid heterostructure.