Surface Magnetism in Topological Crystalline Insulators

Abstract

We study topological crystalline insulators doped with magnetic impurities, in which ferromagnetism at the surface lowers the electronic energy by spontaneous breaking of a crystalline symmetry. The number of energetically equivalent ground states is sensitive to the crystalline symmetry of the surface, as well as the precise density of electrons at the surface. We show that for a SnTe model in the topological state, magnetic states can have twofold symmetry, sixfold symmetry, or eightfold degenerate minima. We compute spin stiffnesses within the model to demonstrate the stability of ferromagnetic states, and consider their ramifications for thermal disordering. Possible experimental consequences of the surface magnetism are discussed.

5 pages, 2 figs, 5 pages supplemental, This version is published : Phys. Rev. B 96, 201111(R) (2017)

References in corpus (10)

• Topological Crystalline Insulators
• Dirac materials
• Diluted Graphene Antiferromagnet
• Ordering of magnetic impurities and tunable electronic properties of topological insulators
• Surface magnetic ordering in topological insulators with bulk magnetic dopants
• Synthesis of SnTe Nanoplates with {100} and {111} Surfaces
• Topological Crystalline Insulator Nanostructures
• Inducing magnetism onto the surface of a topological crystalline insulator
• Spontaneous Layer Polarization and Conducting Domain Walls in the Quantum Hall Regime of Bilayer Graphene
• Ferromagnetism and glassiness on the surface of topological insulators

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Lorentz violation in Dirac and Weyl semimetals
• Ferromagnetic phase transition in topological crystalline insulator thin films: interplay of anomalous Hall angle and magnetic anisotropy
• RKKY Interactions in Graphene Landau Levels
• Topological insulator ring with magnetic impurities
• Spin-polarization of topological crystalline and normal insulator Pb${}_{1-x}$Sn${}_x$Se (111) epilayers probed by photoelectron spectroscopy
• RKKY coupling in Weyl semimetal thin films
• Quantum Internal Structure of Plasmons
• Band structure and topological phases of Pb${}_{1-x-y}$Sn${}_x$Mn${}_y$Te by ab initio calculations
• Spin Stiffness and Domain Walls in Dirac-Electron Mediated Magnets
• SUSY QED with Lorentz-asymmetric fermionic matter and a glance at the electron's EDM