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Anomalous Metallic States at Magnetic Interfaces in an Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator Candidate DyPtBi with Ferroquadrupolar Order

Kentaro Ueda1,2, Hiraku Saito3, Zen Ogame4, Isao Ishii4, Ruo Hibino5, Tatsuya Yanagisawa6, Shinichi Itoh7,8, Taro Nakajima3,7,9, and Yoshinori Tokura1,9,10

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Phys. Rev. X 16, 041028 – Published 27 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/l8fh-cgq7

Abstract

Antiferromagnetic topological insulators provide a fertile platform where symmetry-breaking magnetic order is intertwined with topological electronic states. In particular, magnetic domain walls have attracted much attention, as they can be easily controlled by external fields as in general magnets, and moreover, host nontrivial electronic states distinct from those in bulks and sample surfaces. Here, we report a new antiferromagnetic topological insulator candidate DyPtBi, which hosts conductive magnetic domain walls controllable by uniaxial stress and magnetic field. We find that the resistivity exhibits abrupt increase upon the magnetic and structural phase transition. Concomitantly, the transverse ultrasonic mode shows remarkable softening of 6%, indicating that the Dy 4f ferroquadrupolar order plays a vital role in the phase transition. Furthermore, we reveal by neutron experiments that applying compressive uniaxial stress aligns the magnetic domain state, leading to the strong resistivity enhancement of 14% while eliminating the conductive magnetic domain walls. These findings demonstrate that DyPtBi exhibits topological electronic states entangled with multipolar degrees of freedom, providing a promising route for in situ control of topological properties.

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Popular Summary

Controlling topological boundary states in antiferromagnetic materials remains challenging because manipulating internal magnetic domain structures without disrupting bulk topology requires precise field coupling. We investigated this coupling in the candidate antiferromagnetic topological insulator DyPtBi by combining transport, ultrasonic, and neutron-scattering measurements under external fields.

We observed an abrupt resistivity increase at the magnetic and structural transition temperature, accompanied by a 6% softening of a transverse ultrasonic mode that reveals active Dy3+ 4f ferroquadrupolar order. Our neutron diffraction experiments showed that applying uniaxial compressive stress aligns bulk magnetic domains, causing a 14% resistivity enhancement as conductive domain walls are systematically eliminated. Our work demonstrates that topological transport in DyPtBi is directly coupled to multipolar and domain wall degrees of freedom, providing a mechanical and magnetic strategy for in situ tuning of topological properties.

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Phys. Rev. X 16, 041028– Published 27 October, 2026
  • Received 13 April 2026
  • Revised 22 August 2026
  • Accepted 22 September 2026
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