Coexistence of Superconductivity and Antiferromagnetism in Topological Magnet MnBi2Te4 Films

Published

July 3, 2024

Author(s)

Wei Yuan, Zi-Jie Yan, Hemian Yi, Zihao Wang, Stephen Paolini, Yi-Fan Zhao, Ling-Jie Zhou, Annie G. Wang, Ke Wang, Thomas Prokscha, Zaher Salman, Andreas Suter, Purnima Balakrishnan, Alexander Grutter, Laurel E. Winter, John Singleton, Moses H. Chan, Cui-Zu Chang

Abstract

The interface of two materials can harbor unexpected emergent phenomena. One example is interface-induced superconductivity. In this work, we employ molecular beam epitaxy to grow a series of heterostructures formed by stacking together two nonsuperconducting antiferromagnetic materials, an intrinsic antiferromagnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 and an antiferromagnetic iron chalcogenide FeTe. Our electrical transport measurements reveal interface-induced superconductivity in these heterostructures. By performing scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy measurements, we observe a proximity-induced superconducting gap on the top surface of the MnBi2Te4 layer, confirming the coexistence of superconductivity and antiferromagnetism in the MnBi2Te4 layer. Our findings will advance the fundamental inquiries into the topological superconducting phase in hybrid devices and provide a promising platform for the exploration of chiral Majorana physics in MnBi2Te4-based heterostructures.

Citation

Nano Letters

Volume

24

Issue

26

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Magnetism, Topology, Superconductivity

Citation

Yuan, W. , Yan, Z. , Yi, H. , Wang, Z. , Paolini, S. , Zhao, Y. , Zhou, L. , Wang, A. , Wang, K. , Prokscha, T. , Salman, Z. , Suter, A. , Balakrishnan, P. , Grutter, A. , Winter, L. , Singleton, J. , Chan, M. and Chang, C. (2024), Coexistence of Superconductivity and Antiferromagnetism in Topological Magnet MnBi2Te4 Films, Nano Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=957585 (Accessed January 17, 2025)