Large Exchange Bias Effect and Coverage-Dependent Interfacial Coupling in CrI₃/MnBi₂Te₄ van der Waals Heterostructures.

Abstract

Igniting interface magnetic ordering of magnetic topological insulators by building a van der Waals heterostructure can help to reveal novel quantum states and design functional devices. Here, we observe an interesting exchange bias effect, indicating successful interfacial magnetic coupling, in CrI₃/MnBi₂Te₄ ferromagnetic insulator/antiferromagnetic topological insulator (FMI/AFM-TI) heterostructure devices. The devices originally exhibit a negative exchange bias field, which decays with increasing temperature and is unaffected by the back-gate voltage. When we change the device configuration to be half-covered by CrI₃, the exchange bias becomes positive with a very large exchange bias field exceeding 300 mT. Such sensitive manipulation is explained by the competition between the FM and AFM coupling at the interface of CrI₃ and MnBi₂Te₄, pointing to coverage-dependent interfacial magnetic interactions. Our work will facilitate the development of topological and antiferromagnetic devices.