Chern insulator phase realized in dual-gate-tuned MnBi2Te4 thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the realization and electrical control of Chern insulator phases in MnBi2Te4 thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy, enabling potential topological quantum devices.

Contribution

It introduces a dual-gate structure for MnBi2Te4 films, allowing precise tuning of topological phases and demonstrating the existence of Chern insulator states.

Findings

Dissipationless edge states observed under magnetic field.

Hall resistivity reaches 0.8 h/e2 in ferromagnetic state.

Dual-gate tuning influences topological phase behavior.

Abstract

The intrinsic magnetic order, large topological-magnetic gap and rich topological phases make MnBi2Te4 a wonderful platform to study exotic topological quantum states such as axion insulator and Chern insulator. To realize and manipulate these topological phases in a MnBi2Te4 thin film, precise manipulation of the electric field across the film is essential, which requires a dual-gate structure. In this work, we achieve dual-gate tuning of MnBi2Te4 thin films grown with molecular beam epitaxy on SrTiO3(111) substrates by applying the substrate and an AlOx layer as the gate dielectrics of bottom and top gates, respectively. Under magnetic field of 9T and temperature of 20 mK, the Hall and longitudinal resistivities of the films show inversed gate-voltage dependence, for both top- and bottom-gates, signifying the existence of the dissipationless edge state contributed by Chern insulator phase in the ferromagnetic configuration. The maximum of the Hall resistivity only reaches 0.8 h/e2, even with dual-gate tuning, probably due to the high density of bulk carriers introduced by secondary phases. In the antiferromagnetic state under zero magnetic field, the films show normal insulator behavior. The dual-gated MnBi2Te4 thin films lay the foundation for developing devices based on electrically tunable topological quantum states.