Magnetic structure of GdBiPt: A candidate antiferromagnetic topological insulator

Abstract

A topological insulator is a state of matter which does not break any symmetry and is characterized by topological invariants, the integer expectation values of non-local operators. Antiferromagnetism on the other hand is a broken symmetry state in which the translation symmetry is reduced and time reversal symmetry is broken. Can these two phenomena coexist in the same material? A proposal by Mong {\it et al.}\cite{Mong2010} asserts that the answer is yes. Moreover, it is theoretically possible that the onset of antiferromagnetism enables the non-trivial topology since it may create spin-orbit coupling effects which are absent in the non-magnetic phase. The current work examines a real system, half-Heusler GdBiPt, as a candidate for topological anti ferromagnetism. We find that the magnetic moments of the gadolinium atoms form ferromagnetic sheets which are stacked antiferromagnetically along the body diagonal. This magnetic structure may induce spin orbit coupling on band electrons as they hop perpendicular to the ferromagnetic sheets.

6 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B Rapid Comm

References in corpus (5)

• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Antiferromagnetic topological insulators
• Half-Heusler Compounds as a New Class of Three-Dimensional Topological Insulators
• Metallic surface electronic state in half-Heusler compounds RPtBi (R = Lu, Dy, Gd)
• Crossover from antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic ordering in semi-Heusler alloys Cu1-xNixMnSb with increasing Ni concentration

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Topological Materials: Weyl Semimetals
• The chiral anomaly and thermopower of Weyl fermions in the half-Heusler GdPtBi
• Topological $R$PdBi half-Heusler semimetals: a new family of non-centrosymmetric magnetic superconductors
• Heusler 4.0: Tunable Materials
• Anomalous Hall effect in Weyl semimetal half Heusler compounds RPtBi (R = Gd and Nd)
• Nonlinear anomalous Hall effect for Néel vector detection
• Antiferromagnetism and superconductivity in the half-Heusler semimetal HoPdBi
• Evaluation of spin diffusion length and spin Hall angle of antiferromagnetic Weyl semimetal Mn${}_3$Sn
• Type-II Dirac semimetals in the YPd${}_2$Sn class
• Model Hamiltonian and Time Reversal Breaking Topological Phases of Anti-ferromagnetic Half-Heusler Materials
• Magnetic and superconducting phase diagram of the half-Heusler topological semimetal HoPdBi
• Magnetic structure of the antiferromagnetic half-Heusler compound NdBiPt
• Negative longitudinal magnetoresistance as a sign of a possible chiral magnetic anomaly in the half-Heusler antiferromagnet DyPdBi
• Unusual change in the Dirac-cone energy band upon two-step magnetic transition in CeBi
• Robust tunability of magnetorestance in Half-Heusler RPtBi (R = Gd, Dy, Tm, and Lu) compounds
• Magnon spectrum of the Weyl semimetal half-Heusler compound GdPtBi
• The anomalous antiferromagnetic topological phase in pressurized SmB6
• Anisotropic exchange and non-collinear antiferromagnets on a noncentrosymmetric fcc structure as in the half-Heuslers
• Hexagon Ising-Kondo lattice: An implication for intrinsic antiferromagnetic topological insulator
• ${\mathcal{Z}}_2$ classification for a novel antiferromagnetic topological insulating phase in three-dimensional topological Kondo insulator
• Topological Aspects of Antiferromagnets
• NMR Evidence for the Topologically Nontrivial Nature in a Family of Half-Heusler Compounds