Stabilizing Magnetic Bubble Domains in Epitaxial 2D Magnet/Topological Insulator Heterostructures through Interfacial Interactions

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that interfacial interactions in epitaxial 2D magnet/topological insulator heterostructures stabilize magnetic bubble domains over a wide temperature range, advancing control of magnetic textures for spintronic applications.

Contribution

It reveals how interfacial coupling modifies magnetic anisotropy and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, enabling stable bubble domains without external magnetic fields.

Findings

Robust bubble domains observed from 75 to 165 K.

Interfacial coupling enhances magnetic anisotropy and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction.

Contrast with exfoliated flakes where stripe domains dominate.

Abstract

Epitaxial heterostructures of two-dimensional van der Waals magnets and topological insulators offer a powerful platform for probing interfacial spin interactions that govern magnetic textures in low-dimensional quantum systems, while simultaneously enabling highly efficient, atomically thin spin-orbit-torque memory and computing architectures. Despite this promise, the fundamental role of these interfacial interactions in determining magnetic domain-phase stability remain largely uncharted. Here, we perform scanning transmission X-ray microscopy to image nanoscale magnetic textures in epitaxial Fe3GeTe2 Bi2Te3 heterostructures, enabled by a thermal-release-tape dry transfer process onto X-ray transparent silicon-rich nitride membranes. Under zero-field-cooled conditions, we observe robust bubble domain phases from 75 to 165 K, and across different number of folds of the multilayer Fe3GeTe2 Bi2Te3 heterostructures. This is in stark contrast with exfoliated single-crystal Fe3GeTe2 flakes, where ZFC stripe domains are observed for flakes thicker than 20 nm and no domains have been reported for thin flakes less than 15 nm. First-principles calculations and micromagnetic simulations reveal that interfacial coupling to Bi2Te3 modifies the magnetic anisotropy and introduces interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, shifting the magnetic phase space towards bubble-domain stabilization without field-cooling. Together, our results offer a new strategy for phase-selective control of magnetic domains through interfacial engineering.