In the pursuit of material platforms for the next generation of electronics, scientists are studying new compounds such as topological insulators (TIs), which support protected electron states on the surfaces of crystals that silicon-based technologies cannot.
By combining TIs with spin-based electronics known as spintronics, magnetic technologies such as the spin valve have increased the expectations that new results in TIs might have near-term applications.
However, combining these two research threads has relied on “shoehorning” magnetism by forcing magnetic atoms to partially occupy elemental positions in TIs or by applying a conventional magnetic field. Realizing an integrated material that is both intrinsically magnetic and has a topological character has proven more challenging.
A team of researchers led by Moore Foundation grantee Joseph G. Checkelsky, an investigator in the Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) initiative and assistant professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have experimentally demonstrated a “hybrid material” solution to this problem.
They studied a compound of three elements, gadolinium, platinum and bismuth. In this compound, gadolinium supplies the magnetic order while the platinum-bismuth components support a topological electronic structure. These two components acting in concert make a correlated material that is more than the sum of its parts, showing quantum mechanical corrections to electrical properties at an unprecedented scale.
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