Magnetic proximity-induced energy gap of topological surface states

Topological crystalline insulator surface states can acquire an energy gap when time reversal symmetry is broken by interfacing with a magnetic insulator. Such hybrid topological-magnetic insulator structures can be used to generate novel anomalous Hall effects and to control the magnetic state of the insulator in a spintronic device. In this work, the energy gap of topological surface states in proximity with a magnetic insulator is measured using Landau level spectroscopy. The measurements are carried out on Pb1-xSnxSe/EuSe heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy exhibiting record mobility and a low Fermi energy enabling this measurement. We find an energy gap that does not exceed 20meV and we show that is due to the combined effect of quantum confinement and magnetic proximity. The presence of magnetism at the interface is confirmed by magnetometry and neutron reflectivity. The recovered energy gap sets an upper limit for the Fermi level needed to observe the quantized anomalous Hall effect using magnetic proximity heterostructures

Orthogonal interfacial exchange coupling in GaMnAsP/GaMnAs bilayers

We carried out a systematic study of magnetic ordering and magnetic interlayer coupling in Ga1-xMnxAs1-yPy/Ga1-xMnxAs bilayers using superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry and ferromagnetic resonance. Such bilayers are interesting, because the easy axis of the constituent materials are orthogonal. Our results show that the bilayers are strongly exchange-coupled at the interface, that manifests itself in the form of horizontal exchange-bias-like shifts of the hysteresis loops of the Ga1-xMnxAs layer, as observed in field-cooled magnetic measurements

Magnetic anisotropy of crystalline Fe films grown on (001) GaAs substrates using Ge buffer layers

Magnetic anisotropy of Fe films grown on (001) GaAs substrates using Ge buffer layers were investigated by planar Hall effect measurements. In addition to phenomena arising from dominant cubic symmetry of the Fe specimen, the study of angular dependence of magnetization reversal revealed breaking of this symmetry in the form of systematic asymmetric shifts of magnetic hysteresis loops around the <110 > crystallographic directions. We ascribe such symmetry breaking to an admixture of uniaxial anisotropy associated with the [100] direction in the Fe film. To determine the parameters associated with this uniaxial anisotropy, we quantitatively analyze the asymmetric shifts of the hysteresis loop centers from the <110 > directions. Even though the value of these parameters turns out to be relatively small compared to that of the cubic anisotropy (by about two orders of magnitude), they survive up to room temperature

Ferromagnetic resonance and spin-wave resonances in GaMnAsP films

A series of Ga1-xMnxAs1-yPy films grown by MBE on GaAs (100) substrates was systematically studied by ferromagnetic resonance (FMR). Magnetic anisotropy parameters were obtained by analyzing the angular dependence of the FMR data. The results clearly show that the easy axis of the films shifts from the in-plane [100] direction to the out-of-plane [001], indicating the emergence of a strong tensile-strain-induced perpendicular anisotropy when the P content exceeds y ≈ 0.07. Multiple resonances were observed in Ga1-xMnxAs1-yPy films with thicknesses over 48 nm, demonstrating the existence of exchange-dominated non-propagating spin-wave modes governed by surface anisotropy