Effects of Spin Fluctuation and Disorder on Topological States of Quasi 2D Ferromagnet Fe1/5CrTe2

TL;DR

This study investigates how spin fluctuations and disorder influence the topological and magnetic properties of Fe1/5CrTe2, revealing a dominant intrinsic Berry-curvature contribution to the anomalous Hall effect.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the interplay between spin fluctuations, disorder, and topological Hall responses in Fe1/5CrTe2, a novel van der Waals ferromagnet.

Findings

Fe1/5CrTe2 has a Curie temperature of 182 K, higher than Fe1/3CrTe2.

The intrinsic anomalous Hall conductivity scales linearly with saturation magnetization.

Spin fluctuations and disorder coexist with a well-defined Berry-curvature contribution.

Abstract

We present a thorough magnetization and magneto-transport study of the diluted Fe-intercalated CrTe2 family member, Fe1/5CrTe2, a van der Waals ferromagnet. Fe1/5CrTe2 shows an elevated Curie transition temperature of 182 K in comparison to the Fe1/3CrTe2 composition, indicating the sensitive role of Fe concentration in modulating magnetic exchange interactions within the CrTe2 framework. The saturated magnetization exhibits a quadratic dependence with temperature, indicating the presence of long-wavelength spin fluctuations. Analysis of the temperature dependent resistivity reveals a dominant T3/2 contribution over the typical T2 behavior, signaling substantial coupling between conduction electrons and localized spins. The magnetoresistance shows a linear and non-saturating negative field dependency throughout a wide temperature range below TC, which is compatible with the increasing suppression of spin-disorder dispersion related to ferromagnetic spin fluctuations. A thorough analysis of the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) shows that extrinsic skew-scattering contribution, which is associated to Fe-related disorder, dominates the anomalous Hall response. The systematic separation of intrinsic and extrinsic components reveals that, over a wide temperature range, the intrinsic anomalous Hall conductivity scales linearly with the saturation magnetization, despite the substantial extrinsic dominant background. The linear behavior of intrinsic anomalous Hall conductivity with magnetization is in line with a long wavelength spin-fluctuation framework, where thermal spin disorder lowers net magnetization without significantly altering the underlying electronic structure. These findings reveal Fe1/5CrTe2 as a newly investigated van der Waals ferromagnet where spin fluctuations and disorder coexist with a well-defined intrinsic Berry-curvature contribution to the Hall response.