Magnetic field-induced non-trivial electronic topology in Fe3GeTe2

TL;DR

This study reveals that Fe3GeTe2 exhibits magnetic field-induced topological electronic states, with anomalous transport properties linked to chiral spin textures like skyrmions, suggesting a new topological phase transition driven by magnetic field orientation.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of non-trivial electronic topology in Fe3GeTe2 due to magnetic field-induced chiral spin textures, supported by experimental transport measurements and Monte Carlo simulations.

Findings

Anomalous Hall and Nernst signals show features indicating a topological transition.

Large anomalous transport coefficients observed even without Lorentz force conditions.

Chiral spin structures such as skyrmions are proposed to cause the observed topological effects.

Abstract

The anomalous Hall, Nernst and thermal Hall coefficients of Fe$_{3-x}$GeTe$_2$ display several features upon cooling, like a reversal in the Nernst signal below $T = 50$ K pointing to a topological transition (TT) associated to the development of magnetic spin textures. Since the anomalous transport variables are related to the Berry curvature, a possible TT might imply deviations from the Wiedemann-Franz (WF) law. However, the anomalous Hall and thermal Hall coefficients of Fe$_{3-x}$GeTe$_2$ are found, within our experimental accuracy, to satisfy the WF law for magnetic-fields $\mu_0H$ applied along its inter-layer direction. Surprisingly, large anomalous transport coefficients are also observed for $\mu_0H$ applied along the planar \emph{a}-axis as well as along the gradient of the chemical potential, a configuration that should not lead to their observation due to the absence of Lorentz force. However, as $\mu_0H$ $\|$ \emph{a}-axis is increased, magnetization and neutron scattering indicate just the progressive canting of the magnetic moments towards the planes followed by their saturation. These anomalous planar quantities are found to not scale with the component of the planar magnetization ($M_{\|}$), showing instead a sharp decrease beyond $\sim \mu_0 H_{\|} = $ 4 T which is the field required to align the magnetic moments along $\mu_0 H_{\|}$. We argue that locally chiral spin structures, such as skyrmions, and possibly skyrmion tubes, lead to a field dependent spin-chirality and hence to a novel type of topological anomalous transport. Locally chiral spin-structures are captured by our Monte-Carlo simulations incorporating small Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and biquadratic exchange interactions.