Exchange-Biasing Topological Charges by Antiferromagnetism

Published

July 17, 2018

Author(s)

Qing Lin He, Gen Yin, Alexander Grutter, Lei Pan, Xiaoyu Che, Guoqiang Yu, Dustin A. Gilbert, Steven M. Disseler, Yizhou Liu, Padraic Shafer, Bin Zhang, Yingying Wu, Brian Kirby, Elke Arenholz, Roger K. Lake, Xiaodong Han, Kang L. Wang, Xiaodong Han, Kang L. Wang

Abstract

'Geometric' or 'topological' Hall effect is induced by the emergent gauge field experienced by the carriers adiabatically passing through chiral spin textures. This effect is an indication of non-trivial spin textures, such as magnetic skyrmions. Here we demonstrate the geometric Hall effect at the interface of a topological insulator [TI, (Bi,Sb)₂Te₃]/antiferromagnet (MnTe) thin-film heterostructure. A new type of exchange-bias - topological exchange bias, is observed as a modulation of the geometric Hall effect induced by the topological spin textures on the TI surface anchored to the antiferromagnetic local spins. This exchange bias manifests as an asymmetric magnitude of the geometric Hall component that reverses with field-cooling direction, accompanied with a shift of the Hall resistivity along the field axis. This new exchange bias originates from the topological charge stability determined by the adjacent antiferromagnetic layer. This heterostructure is a novel platform to understand the physics of magnetic skyrmions in TIs and provides a new method to manipulate the nucleation of skyrmions using antiferromagnetic order.

Citation

Nature Communications

Volume

9

Issue

1

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Topology, magnetism, interfaces, antiferromagnet, skyrmion

Citation

He, Q. , Yin, G. , Grutter, A. , Pan, L. , Che, X. , Yu, G. , Gilbert, D. , Disseler, S. , Liu, Y. , Shafer, P. , Zhang, B. , Wu, Y. , Kirby, B. , Arenholz, E. , Lake, R. , Han, X. , Wang, K. , Han, X. and Wang, K. (2018), Exchange-Biasing Topological Charges by Antiferromagnetism, Nature Communications, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=924436 (Accessed October 11, 2025)