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Structural properties of thin-film ferromagnetic topological insulators

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Richardson, C 
Devine-Stoneman, J 
Vickers, M 
Chang, C-Z 

Abstract

We present a comprehensive study of the crystal structure of the thin-film, ferromagnetic topological insulator (Bi, Sb)2 xVxTe3 .The dissipationless quantum anomalous Hall edge states it manifests are of particular interest for spintronics, as a natural spin filter or pure spin source, and as qubits for topological quantum computing. For ranges typically used in experiments, we investigate the effect of doping, substrate choice and film thickness on the (Bi, Sb)2Te3 unit cell using high-resolution X-ray diffractometry. Scanning transmission electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy measurements provide local structural and interfacial information. We find that the unit cell is unaffected in-plane by vanadium doping changes, and remains unchanged over a thickness range of 4–10 quintuple layers (1 QL 1 nm). The in-plane lattice parameter (a) also remains the same in films grown on different substrate materials. However, out-of-plane the c-axis increases with the doping level and thicknesses >10 QL, and is potentially reduced in films grown on Si (1 1 1).

Description

Keywords

electronic devices, ferromagnetism, quantum hall, topological insulators

Journal Title

Scientific Reports

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2045-2322
2045-2322

Volume Title

7

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group
Sponsorship
Royal Society (RG110333)
The Royal Society (uf100049)
Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2013-337)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P026311/1)
European Commission (656485)
This work was financially supported by the Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2013-337), the European Commission through a Marie Curie Grant (MSCA-IFEF-ST No. 656485-Spin3), the Royal Society, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P026311/1).C.-Z.C. and J.S.M. acknowledge support from from the NSF (DMR-1207469, DMR-1700137), ONR (N00014-13-1-0301, N00014-16-1-2657), and the STC Center for Integrated Quantum Materials under NSF grant DMR-1231319.