4.6 Article

Magnetic domain walls in antiferromagnetic topological insulator heterostructures

Journal

PHYSICAL REVIEW B
Volume 104, Issue 5, Pages -

Publisher

AMER PHYSICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.104.054433

Keywords

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Funding

  1. Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory through iCASE studentship [RG97400, 17000178]
  2. Engineering and Physics Research Council [2137003]

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This study explores the emergence of spin-polarized flat bands at head-to-head domain walls in topological insulator heterostructures. By tuning the width of the domain wall, the functional form of bound states can be controlled. The number of layers in a multilayer sample affects the electronic dispersion, with odd-layer samples exhibiting particle-hole symmetry and linearly dispersing topologically nontrivial states around E=0, while even-layer samples lack such symmetry and result in a gapped system with spin-polarized flat bands.
We explore the emergence of spin-polarized flat bands at head-to-head domain walls (DWs) in topological insulator heterostructures with in-plane magnetization and interlayer antiferromagnetic coupling. We show in the framework of quantum well physics that, by tuning the width of a DW, one can control the functional form of the bound states appearing across it. Furthermore, we demonstrate the effect that the parity of the number of layers in a multilayer sample has on the electronic dispersion. The alignment of the magnetization vectors on the top and bottom surfaces of odd-layer samples affords particle-hole symmetry, leading to the presence of linearly dispersing topologically nontrivial states around E = 0. By contrast, the lack of particle-hole symmetry in even-layer samples results in a gapped system, with spin-polarized flat bands appearing on either side of a band gap, with a characteristic energy well within terahertz energy scales. Such a system is a versatile platform for the development of spintronic devices and proposes one use in reconfigurable magnetic memory.

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