Magnetic crystalline-symmetry-protected axion electrodynamics and field-tunable unpinned Dirac cones in EuIn2As2

TL;DR

This paper reveals that EuIn2As2 is a magnetic topological insulator with low-symmetry helical antiferromagnetic order, hosting protected axion electrodynamics and tunable surface states, including unpinned Dirac cones.

Contribution

It demonstrates EuIn2As2's true magnetic order as helical antiferromagnetism, establishing it as a stoichiometric magnetic topological-crystalline axion insulator with field-tunable surface states.

Findings

EuIn2As2 has low-symmetry helical antiferromagnetic order.

It hosts a magnetic topological-crystalline axion insulator phase.

Surface states can be tuned between gapless and gapped by magnetic field.

Abstract

Knowledge of magnetic symmetry is vital for exploiting nontrivial surface states of magnetic topological materials. EuIn$_{2}$As$_{2}$ is an excellent example, as it is predicted to have collinear antiferromagnetic order where the magnetic moment direction determines either a topological-crystalline-insulator phase supporting axion electrodynamics or a higher-order-topological-insulator phase with chiral hinge states. Here, we use neutron diffraction, symmetry analysis, and density functional theory results to demonstrate that EuIn$_{2}$As$_{2}$ actually exhibits low-symmetry helical antiferromagnetic order which makes it a stoichiometric magnetic topological-crystalline axion insulator protected by the combination of a 180$^{\circ}$ rotation and time-reversal symmetries: $C_{2}\times\mathcal{T}=2^{\prime}$. Surfaces protected by $2^{\prime}$ are expected to have an exotic gapless Dirac cone which is unpinned to specific crystal momenta. All other surfaces have gapped Dirac cones and exhibit half-integer quantum anomalous Hall conductivity. We predict that the direction of a modest applied magnetic field of $H\approx1$ to $2$ T can tune between gapless and gapped surface states.