Band engineering of a magnetic thin film rare earth monopnictide

Abstract

Realizing quantum materials in few atomic layer morphologies is a key to both observing and controlling a wide variety of exotic quantum phenomena. This includes topological electronic materials, where the tunability and dimensionality of few layer materials have enabled the detection of $Z_2$, Chern, and Majorana phases. Here, we report the development of a platform for thin film correlated, topological states in the magnetic rare-earth monopnictide ($RX$) system GdBi synthesized by molecular beam epitaxy. This material is known from bulk single crystal studies to be semimetallic antiferromagnets with Neel temperature $T_N=$ 28 K and is the magnetic analog of the non-$f$-electron containing system LaBi proposed to have topological surface states. Our transport and magnetization studies of thin films grown epitaxially on BaF${}_2$ reveal that semimetallicity is lifted below approximately 8 crystallographic unit cells while magnetic order is maintained down to our minimum thickness of 5 crystallographic unit cells. First-principles calculations show that the non-trivial topology is preserved down to the monolayer limit, where quantum confinement and the lattice symmetry give rise to a $C=2$ Chern insulator phase. We further demonstrate the stabilization of these films against atmospheric degradation using a combination of air-free buffer and capping procedures. These results together identify thin film $RX$ materials as potential platforms for engineering topological electronic bands in correlated magnetic materials.