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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Identifying axion insulator by quantized magnetoelectric effect in antiferromagnetic MnBi2Te4 tunnel junction

Yu-Hang Li1,* and Ran Cheng1,2,†

  • 1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA

  • *yuhang.li@ucr.edu
  • †rancheng@ucr.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 4, L022067 – Published 28 June, 2022Erratum Phys. Rev. Research 5, 029001 (2023)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L022067

Abstract

The intrinsic magnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 is believed to be an axion insulator in its antiferromagnetic ground state. However, the direct identification of axion insulators remains experimentally elusive because the observed vanishing Hall resistance, while indicating the onset of the axion field, is inadequate to distinguish the system from a trivial normal insulator. Using numerical Green's functions, we theoretically demonstrate the quantized magnetoelectric current in a tunnel junction of atomically thin MnBi2Te4 sandwiched between two contacts, which is a smoking-gun signal that unambiguously confirms antiferromagnetic MnBi2Te4 to be an axion insulator. Our predictions can be verified directly by experiments.

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Erratum

Erratum: Identifying axion insulator by quantized magnetoelectric effect in antiferromagnetic MnBi2Te4 tunnel junction [Phys. Rev. Research 4, L022067 (2022)]

Yu-Hang Li and Ran Cheng
Phys. Rev. Research 5, 029001 (2023)

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References (46)

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Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 4, L022067– Published 28 June, 2022
  • Received 22 November 2021
  • Revised 2 February 2022
  • Accepted 23 May 2022
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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