Growth of bulk crystals of magnetic topological insulators under peritectic conditions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new synthetic growth protocol for magnetic topological insulators, enabling the production of high-quality single crystals of various compounds using a Bridgman-like method under peritectic conditions.

Contribution

The authors developed a novel two-phase source growth method for magnetic topological insulators, allowing the synthesis of high-quality single crystals of incongruently melted compounds.

Findings

Successful growth of multiple magnetic topological insulators.

Method applicable to incongruently melted compounds.

Ability to produce crystals with diverse compositions.

Abstract

Magnetic topological materials (MTIs) including MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ are of scientific interest due to the possibility to reveal the interplay between topological and magnetic orders. For these materials preparation issues are still challenging. In our paper we report new synthetic protocol using two-phase source in Bridgman-like growth procedure. We applied it to grow a number of TIs of GeAs$_2$Te$_4$ structural type including individual compounds MnBi$_2$Te$_4$, MnSb$_2$Te$_4$, GeBi$_2$Te$_4$, SnBi$_2$Te$_4$, PbBi$_2$Te$_4$ and several mixed crystals of whole range of compositions: Mn(Bi,Sb)$_2$Te$_4$, (Ge,Mn)Bi$_2$Te$_4$, new materials Mn(Bi,In)$_2$Te$_4$. The method developed can be used to obtain single crystals of any incongruently melted compounds with small region of primary crystallization from melt in the corresponding equilibrium phase diagrams.