Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect of Magnetic Topological Insulator Thin Films by Phase Boundary Engineering

Abstract: We generalize the topological phase diagram of magnetic topological insulator (TI) thin films in an extended parameter space comprising out-of-plane (OP) and in-plane (IP) exchange fields in the presence of structural inversion asymmetry (SIA) while taking a generic orbital-dependent spin coupling allowed for TIs into consideration. The results show that an IP field substantially deforms phase boundaries and generically induces the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect. For symmetric spin coupling, extremely weak OP and IP exchange fields create the QAH state by tuning SIA with a gate bias. For antisymmetric coupling, the QAH phase is absent without a strong enough IP field. These findings demonstrate that in the thin-film regime, engineering the phase boundary is a key process to efficiently realize and manipulate the QAH effect for nondissipative electronic applications.