Scale-Invariant Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in Magnetic Topological Insulators beyond the Two-Dimensional Limit
Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 137201 – Published 26 September, 2014Erratum Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 199901 (2014)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.137201
Abstract
We investigate the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) and related chiral transport in the millimeter-size films. With high sample quality and robust magnetism at low temperatures, the quantized Hall conductance of is found to persist even when the film thickness is beyond the two-dimensional (2D) hybridization limit. Meanwhile, the Chern insulator-featured chiral edge conduction is manifested by the nonlocal transport measurements. In contrast to the 2D hybridized thin film, an additional weakly field-dependent longitudinal resistance is observed in the ten-quintuple-layer film, suggesting the influence of the film thickness on the dissipative edge channel in the QAHE regime. The extension of the QAHE into the three-dimensional thickness region addresses the universality of this quantum transport phenomenon and motivates the exploration of new QAHE phases with tunable Chern numbers. In addition, the observation of scale-invariant dissipationless chiral propagation on a macroscopic scale makes a major stride towards ideal low-power interconnect applications.