• Open Access

From Colossal to Zero: Controlling the Anomalous Hall Effect in Magnetic Heusler Compounds via Berry Curvature Design

Kaustuv Manna, Lukas Muechler, Ting-Hui Kao, Rolf Stinshoff, Yang Zhang, Johannes Gooth, Nitesh Kumar, Guido Kreiner, Klaus Koepernik, Roberto Car, Jürgen Kübler, Gerhard H. Fecher, Chandra Shekhar, Yan Sun, and Claudia Felser
Phys. Rev. X 8, 041045 – Published 11 December 2018
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Abstract

Since the discovery of the anomalous Hall effect (AHE), the anomalous Hall conductivity (AHC) has been thought to be zero when there is no net magnetization. However, the recently found relation between the intrinsic AHE and the Berry curvature predicts other possibilities, such as a large AHC in noncolinear antiferromagnets with no net magnetization but net Berry curvature. Vice versa, the AHE in principle could be tuned to zero, irrespective of a finite magnetization. Here, we experimentally investigate this possibility and demonstrate that the symmetry elements of Heusler magnets can be changed such that the Berry curvature and all the associated properties are switched while leaving the magnetization unaffected. This enables us to tune the AHC from 0Ω1cm1 up to 1600Ω1cm1 with an exceptionally high anomalous Hall angle up to 12%, while keeping the magnetization the same. Our study shows that the AHC can be controlled by selectively changing the Berry curvature distribution, independent of the magnetization.

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  • Received 3 July 2018
  • Revised 25 September 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.8.041045

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Kaustuv Manna1,*, Lukas Muechler1,2,‡, Ting-Hui Kao1,3, Rolf Stinshoff1, Yang Zhang1, Johannes Gooth1, Nitesh Kumar1, Guido Kreiner1, Klaus Koepernik4, Roberto Car2, Jürgen Kübler1,5, Gerhard H. Fecher1, Chandra Shekhar1, Yan Sun1, and Claudia Felser1,†

  • 1Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany
  • 2Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
  • 3Department of Physics, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung 804, Taiwan
  • 4IFW Dresden, P.O. Box 270116, 01171 Dresden, Germany
  • 5Institut für Festkörperphysik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany

  • *Corresponding author. kaustuvmanna@gmail.com
  • Corresponding author. felser@cpfs.mpg.de
  • Present address: Center for Computational Quantum Physics, The Flatiron Institute, New York, New York 10010, USA.

Popular Summary

Apply a magnetic field perpendicular to an electric current passing through a conductor, and you will generate a voltage transverse to both. This is the well-known Hall effect. When applied to certain magnetic materials, an additional transverse voltage arises, which is known as the anomalous Hall effect. It has long been assumed that in the absence of magnetization, this effect disappears. However, recent research has suggested that this may not be the case. Here, we experimentally show that the anomalous Hall effect can be tuned by controlling a material’s Berry curvature, a property of the electronic band structure that determines topological behavior.

In our experiments, we focus on a class of magnetic crystalline compounds known as Heusler magnets. By changing the chemical composition via a suitable change of atoms or by varying the number of valance electrons, we can easily alter the details of the band structure and hence engineer the Heusler magnet’s Berry curvature while leaving the magnetization unchanged. This lets us tune the anomalous Hall conductivity from 0Ω1cm1 to 1600Ω1cm1.

Our experiments show, for the first time, that the anomalous Hall effect can be tuned over a large range, which provides solid insight into the origin of this effect and possible applications in spintronic devices that utilize the topological properties of matter.

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Vol. 8, Iss. 4 — October - December 2018

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It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

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