Recently, natural van der Waals heterostructures of (MnBi2Te4)m(Bi2Te3)n have been theoretically predicted and experimentally shown to host tunable magnetic properties and topologically nontrivial surface states. In this work, we systematically investigate both the structural and electronic responses of MnBi2Te4 and MnBi4Te7 to external pressure. In addition to the suppression of antiferromagnetic order, MnBi2Te4 is found to undergo a metal-semiconductor-metal transition upon compression. The resistivity of MnBi4Te7 changes dramatically under high pressure and a non-monotonic evolution of \r{ho}(T) is observed. The nontrivial topology is proved to persists before the structural phase transition observed in the high-pressure regime. We find that the bulk and surface states respond differently to pressure, which is consistent with the non-monotonic change of the resistivity. Interestingly, a pressure-induced amorphous state is observed in MnBi2Te4, while two high pressure phase transitions are revealed in MnBi4Te7. Our combined theoretical and experimental research establishes MnBi2Te4 and MnBi4Te7 as highly tunable magnetic topological insulators, in which phase transitions and new ground states emerge upon compression.
This paper has been withdrawn due to a request of the first author to exclude his name from the author list and to motivate sufficiently the appliclication of the used model for antiferromagnetic insulators.
Layered organic superconductors are on the verge of the Mott insulator. We use Gutzwiller variational method to study a Hubbard model including a spin exchange coupling term. The ground state is found to be a Gossamer superconductor at small on-site Coulomb repulsion U and an antiferromagnetic Mott insulator at large U, separated by a first order phase transition. Our theory is qualitatively consistent with major experiments reported in organic superconductors.
We propose a realization of chiral Majorana modes propagating on the hinges of a 3D antiferromagnetic topological insulator, which was recently theoretically predicted and experimentally confirmed in the tetradymite-type $\mathrm{MnBi_2Te_4}$-related ternary chalgogenides. These materials consist of ferromagnetically ordered 2D layers, whose magnetization direction alternates between neighboring layers, forming an antiferromagnetic order. Besides surfaces with a magnetic gap, there also exsist gapless surfaces with a single Dirac cone, which can be gapped out when proximity coupled to an $s$-w…
Energy spectrum of electrons (holes) doped into a two-dimensional antiferromagnetic insulator is quantized in an external magnetic field of arbitrary direction. A peculiar dependence of de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) or Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) magneto-oscillation amplitudes on the azimuthal in-plane angle from the magnetization direction and on the polar angle from the out-of-plane direction is found, which can be used as a sensitive probe of the antiferromagnetic order in doped Mott-Hubbard, spin-density wave (SDW), and conventional band-structure insulators.
Inspired by recent feats in exchange coupling antiferromagnets to an adjacent material, we demonstrate the possibility of employing them for inducing spin splitting in a superconductor, thereby avoiding the detrimental, parasitic effects of ferromagnets employed to this end. We derive the Gor'kov equation for the matrix Green's function in the superconducting layer, considering a microscopic model for its disordered interface with a two-sublattice magnetic insulator. We find that an antiferromagnetic insulator with effectively uncompensated interface induces a large, disorder-resistant spin sp…
We study the effective interactions between Dirac fermions on the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator due to the proximity coupling to the magnetic fluctuations in a ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic insulator. Our results show that the magnetic fluctuations can mediate attractive interactions between Dirac fermions of both Amperean and BCS type. In the ferromagnetic case, we find pairing between fermions with parallel momenta, so-called Amperean pairing, whenever the effective Lagrangian for the magnetic fluctuations does not contain a quadratic term. The pairing interaction…
Anisotropic resistivities of Bi_2Sr_2Ca_{1-x}Er_xCu_2O_8 single crystals were measured and analyzed from 4.2 to 500 K with special interest in the parent antiferromagnetic insulator of x=1.0. Although the resistivity is semiconducting along both the in- and out-of-plane directions, the temperature dependence is found to be significantly different. As a result, the resistivity ratio for x=1.0 takes a broad maximum near room temperature. The electric conduction in parent antiferromagnetic insulators is different from other semiconductors, and is as unconventional as that in high-temperature supe…
We study superconductivity on the surface of a topological insulator, mediated by magnetic fluctuations in an adjacent ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic insulator. Superconductivity can arise from effective interactions between helical fermions induced by interfacial fermion-magnon interactions. For both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic insulators, these fermion-fermion interactions have the correct structure to facilitate pairing between particles located on the same side of the Fermi surface, also known as Amperean pairing. In antiferromagnets, the strength of the induced interactions ca…
A two-dimensional time-reversal symmetric topological superconductor is a fully gapped system possessing a helical Majorana mode on the edges. This helical Majorana edge mode (HMEM), which is a Kramer's pair of two chiral Majorana edge modes in the opposite propagating directions, is robust under time-reversal symmetry protection. We propose a feasible setup and accessible measurement to provide the preliminary step of the HMEM realization by studying superconducting antiferromagnetic quantum spin Hall insulators. Since this antiferromagnetic topological insulator hosts a helical electron edge…
We theoretically investigate domain wall motion in an antiferromagnetic insulator layer caused by thermally generated spin currents in an adjacent spin-split superconductor layer. An uncompensated antiferromagnet interface enables the two crucial ingredients underlying the mechanism - spin splitting in the superconductor and absorption of spin currents by the antiferromagnet. Treating the superconductor using the quasiclassical theory and the antiferromagnet via Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert description, we find domain wall propagation along the thermal gradient with relatively large velocities $\si…
We study theoretically spin pumping in bilayers consisting of superconductors and antiferromagnetic insulators. We consider both compensated and uncompensated interfaces and include both the regular scattering channel and the Umklapp scattering channel. We find that at temperatures close to the critical temperatures and precession frequencies much lower than the gap, the spin-current is enhanced in superconductors as compared to normal metals. Otherwise, the spin-current is suppressed. The relevant precession frequencies where the spin-current in SC/AFI is enhanced compared to NM/AFI is much l…
A new compound with a quasi-two-dimensional array of FeSe3O tetrahedra and an orthorombic structure, namely BaFe2Se2O, has been successfully fabricated. Experimental results show that this compound is an insulator and has an antiferromagnetic (AF) transition at 240 K. Band structure calculation reveals the narrowing of Fe 3d bands near the Fermi energy, which leads to the localization of magnetism and the Mott insulating behavior. The large distances between the Fe atoms perhaps are responsible for the characters. Linear response calculation further indicates a strong in-plane AF exchange $J$,…
The dispersion relation of a doped hole in the half-filled 2D Hubbard model is shown to follow a k^4 law around the (0,pi) and (pi,0) points in the Brillouin zone. Upon addition of pair-hopping processes this dispersion relation is unstable towards a k^2 law. The above follows from T=0 Quantum Monte calculations of the single particle spectral function A(k, omega) on 16 X 16 lattices. We discuss finite dopings and argue that the added term restores coherence to charge dynamics and drives the system towards a d_x^2 - y^2 superconductor.
The magnetic properties of Fe1.03Te under hydrostatic pressure up to p ~ 5.7 GPa were investigated by means of muon spin rotation, dc magnetization, and neutron depolarization measurements. With increasing pressure the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature TN decreases continuously from 70 K at ambient pressure towards higher pressures. Surprisingly, the commensurate antiferromagnetic order of FeTe enters a region of incommensurate and dynamical magnetic order before at p ~ 1.7 GPa the system turns ferromagnetic. The ferromagnetic ordering temperature TC increases with increasing pressure.
Motivated by the widespread experimental observations of nematicity in strongly underdoped cuprate superconductors, we investigate the possibility of enhanced nematic fluctuations in the vicinity of a Mott insulator that displays Néel-type antiferromagnetic order. By performing a strong-coupling expansion of an effective model that contains both Cu-$d$ and O-$p$ orbitals on the square lattice, we demonstrate that quadrupolar fluctuations in the $p$-orbitals inevitably generate a biquadratic coupling between the spins of the $d$-orbitals. The key point revealed by our classical Monte Carlo simu…
Using high-resolution resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS), we performed a momentum-resolved study of magnetic excitations in the model spin-1/2 2D antiferromagnetic insulator Sr_2CuCl_2O_2. We identify both a single-spin-wave feature and a multi-magnon continuum, and show that the X-ray polarization can be used to distinguish these two contributions in the cross-section. The spin-waves display a large (70 meV) dispersion between the zone-boundary points ($π$,0) and ($π$/2,$π$/2). Employing an extended $t$-$t'$-$t"$-$U$ one-band Hubbard model, we find significant electronic hopping beyon…
We have analyzed the quasiparticle dispersion and ARPES-spectral density for Sr2CuO2Cl2 and Ca2CuO2Cl2 antiferromagnetic insulators along basic symmetric directions of the Brillouin zone (BZ) in a framework of an extended tight binding method (ETBM) with explicit account for intracell strong electron correlations. The quasiparticle dispersion is in a good agreement with ARPES- data. At the top of valence band we found a narrow impurity-like virtual level with the spectral weight proportional to the concentration of spin fluctuations. A pseudogap between the virtual level and the top of the val…
Two-dimensional topological superconductivity has attracted great interest due to the emergence of Majorana modes bound to vortices and propagating along edges. However, due to its rare appearance in natural compounds, experimental realizations rely on a delicate artificial engineering involving materials with helical states, magnetic fields and conventional superconductors. Here we introduce an alternative path using a class of three-dimensional antiferromagnet to engineer a two- dimensional topological superconductor. Our proposal exploits the appearance of solitonic states at the interface …
The resistivity $ρ$ and Hall resistivity $ρ_H$ are measured on FeSe at pressures up to $P$ = 28.3 kbar in magnetic fields up to $B$ = 14.5 T. The $ρ(B)$ and $ρ_H(B)$ curves are analyzed with multicarrier models to estimate the carrier density and mobility as a function of $P$ and temperature ($ T\leqslant$ 110 K). It is shown that the pressure-induced antiferromagnetic transition is accompanied by an abrupt reduction of the carrier density and scattering. This indicates that the electronic structure is reconstructed significantly by the antiferromagnetic order.
