Critical Behavior and Universal Signature of an Axion Insulator State

Abstract

Recently, the search for an axion insulator state in the ferromagnet-3D topological insulator (TI) heterostructure and $\mathrm{MnB}{\mathrm{i}}_2\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{e}}_4$ has attracted intensive interest. However, its detection remains difficult in experiments. We systematically investigate the disorder-induced phase transition of the axion insulator state in a 3D TI with antiparallel magnetization alignment surfaces. It is found that there exists a 2D disorder-induced phase transition which shares the same universality class with the quantum Hall plateau to plateau transition. Then, we provide a phenomenological theory which maps the random mass Dirac Hamiltonian of the axion insulator state into the Chalker-Coddington network model. Therefore, we propose to probe the axion insulator state by investigating the universal signature of such a phase transition in the ferromagnet-3D TI heterostructure and $\mathrm{MnB}{\mathrm{i}}_2\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{e}}_4$. Our findings not only show a global phase diagram of the axion insulator state, but also provide a new experimental routine to probe it.

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Cited by in corpus (20)

• Colloquium: Quantum anomalous Hall effect
• Topological Materials Discovery from Crystal Symmetry
• Layer Hall effect induced by hidden Berry curvature in antiferromagnetic insulators
• Routes to realize the axion-insulator phase in MnBi${}_2$Te${}_4$(Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$)${}_n$ family: a perspective
• Quantum Anomalous Layer Hall Effect in the Topological Magnet MnBi2Te4
• Dissipationless Layertronics in Axion Insulator $\mathrm{MnB}{\mathrm{i}}_2\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{e}}_4$
• Delocalization Transition of Disordered Axion Insulator
• Evolution of Berry curvature and reentrant quantum anomalous Hall effect in an intrinsic magnetic topological insulator
• Electrically Controlled Anomalous Hall Effect and Orbital Magnetization in Topological Magnet MnBi2Te4
• Identifying Axion Insulator by Quantized Magnetoelectric Effect in Antiferromagnetic ${\mathrm{MnBi}}_2{\mathrm{Te}}_4$ Tunnel Junction
• Three-Dirac-fermion approach to unexpected universal gapless surface states of van der Waals magnetic topological insulators
• On the half-quantized Hall conductance of massive surface electrons in magnetic topological insulator films
• Anderson Critical Metal Phase in Trivial States Protected by Average Magnetic Crystalline Symmetry
• Disorder-induced phase transitions in double Weyl semimetals
• Dissipative Edge Transport in Disordered Axion Insulator Films
• Intrinsic (Axion) Statistical Topological Insulator
• Magneto-optical Kerr and Faraday effects in bilayer antiferromagnetic insulators
• Direct visualization of edge state in even-layer MnBi2Te4 at zero magnetic field
• Disorder-induced delocalization and reentrance in a Chern-Hopf insulator
• Conductance oscillations of antiferromagnetic layer tunnel junctions