Lado, Jose L., Fernández-Rossier, Joaquín
Quantum anomalous Hall effect in graphene coupled to skyrmions
Phys. Rev. B 92, 115433. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.92.115433
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10045/49928
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.92.115433
ISSN: 1098-0121 (Print)
Abstract: 
Skyrmions are topologically protected spin textures, characterized by a topological winding number N, that occur spontaneously in some magnetic materials. Recent experiments have demonstrated the capability to grow graphene on top Fe/Ir, a system that exhibits a two-dimensional skyrmion lattice. Here we show that a weak exchange coupling between the Dirac electrons in graphene and a two-dimensional skyrmion lattice withN = ±1 drives graphene into a quantum anomalous Hall phase, with a band gap in bulk, a Chern number C = 2N, and chiral edge states with perfect quantization of conductance G = 2N e2 h . Our findings imply that the topological properties of the skyrmion lattice can be imprinted in the Dirac electrons of graphene.
Keywords:Quantum anomalous Hall effect, Graphene, Skyrmions
American Physical Society
info:eu-repo/semantics/article