Topological Hall effect induced by chiral fluctuations in ErMn6Sn6

Abstract

Topological Hall effect (THE) is a hallmark of scalar spin chirality, which is found in static skyrmion lattices. Recent theoretical works have shown that scalar spin chirality could also emerge dynamically from thermal spin fluctuations. Evidence of such a mechanism was found in the kagome magnet YMn6Sn6 where fluctuations arise from frustrated exchange interactions between Mn kagome layers. In YMn6Sn6, the rare-earth ion Y3+ is non-magnetic. When it is replaced by a magnetic ion (Gd3+-Ho3+), the intrinsically antiferromagnetic Mn-Mn interlayer coupling is overwhelmed by the indirect ferromagnetic Mn-R-Mn one, relieving frustration. This generates interesting anomalous Hall conductivity, but not THE. Here we show that Er lies in an intermediate regime where direct and indirect interactions closely compete, so that ErMn6Sn6 can switch from one regime to the other by temperature, i.e., from a collinear ferrimagnetic ground state to a spiral antiferromagnet at 78 K. The AFM phase forms a dome in the temperature-field phase diagram. Close to the boundary of this dome, we find a sizable fluctuations-driven THE, thus underscoring the universality of this chiral fluctuation mechanism for generating non-zero scalar spin chirality.

Main Text: 8 pages, 4 figures Supplemental: 13 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables; Version 2: Reformatted and changed x-axis labels in figure 2c,e Version 3: Figure 2 split into figures 2 & 3, title changed, significant additions to text to provide more details on experimental methods and findings

References in corpus (6)

• High temperature fractional quantum Hall states
• Theoretical prediction of a strongly correlated Dirac metal
• Topological Hall effect at above room temperature in heterostructures composed of a magnetic insulator and a heavy metal
• Chiral properties of the zero-field spiral state and field-induced magnetic phases of the itinerant kagome metal YMn${}_6$Sn${}_6$
• Spin Spiral and Topological Hall Effect in a Metamagnet Fe${}_3$Ga${}_4$
• Spin-flop quasi metamagnetic, anisotropic magnetic, and electrical transport behavior of Ho substituted kagome magnet ErMn${}_6$Sn${}_6$

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• Diverse Magnetic Phase Diagram and Anomalous Hall Effect in Antiferromagetic LuMn${}_6$Sn${}_6$
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• Correlation between Complex Spin Textures and the Magnetocaloric and Hall Effects in Eu(Ga${}_{1-x}$Al${}_x$)${}_4$ ($x$ = 0.9, 1)
• Evolution of magnetic bubble domains in the uniaxial ferromagnet CeRu${}_2$Ga${}_2$B inferred from the Hall effect and ac magnetic susceptibility
• Engineering magnetic anisotropy and ferromagnetism in topological Kagome metal GdV6Sn6 via Nd substitution
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