Domain Wall in a Quantum Anomalous Hall Insulator as a Magnetoelectric Piston

Abstract

We theoretically study the magnetoelectric coupling in a quantum anomalous Hall insulator state induced by interfacing a dynamic magnetization texture to a topological insulator. In particular, we propose that the quantum anomalous Hall insulator with a magnetic configuration of a domain wall, when contacted by electrical reservoirs, acts as a magnetoelectric piston. A moving domain wall pumps charge current between electrical leads in a closed circuit, while applying an electrical bias induces reciprocal domain-wall motion. This piston-like action is enabled by a finite reflection of charge carriers via chiral modes imprinted by the domain wall. Moreover, we find that, when compared with the recently discovered spin-orbit torque-induced domain-wall motion in heavy metals, the reflection coefficient plays the role of an effective spin-Hall angle governing the efficiency of the proposed electrical control of domain walls. Quantitatively, this effective spin-Hall angle is found to approach a universal value of $2$, providing an efficient scheme to reconfigure the domain-wall chiral interconnects for possible memory and logic applications.

5 pages, 3 figures, new version adding three more relevant references

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Emergent ferromagnetism near three-quarters filling in twisted bilayer graphene
• Colloquium: Quantum anomalous Hall effect
• Quantized chiral edge conduction on reconfigurable domain walls of a magnetic topological insulator
• Mixed topological semimetals driven by orbital complexity in two-dimensional ferromagnets
• Chiral transport along magnetic domain walls in the quantum anomalous Hall effect
• Universal charge and current on magnetic domain walls in Weyl semimetals
• Current Driven Magnetization Reversal in Orbital Chern Insulators
• Spectral features of magnetic domain walls on surface of 3D topological insulators
• Electrically-driven domain wall motion in a ferromagnetic Kagome lattice
• Quantum anomalous Hall effects controlled by chiral domain walls
• Magnetoconductance signatures of chiral domain-wall bound states in magnetic topological insulators
• Robust magnetotransport in disordered ferromagnetic kagome layers with quantum anomalous Hall effect