Paper detail

Coincidence of Superparamagnetism and perfect quantization in the Quantum Anomalous Hall state

Topological insulators doped with transition metals have recently been found to host a strong ferromagnetic state with perpendicular to plane anisotropy as well as support a quantum Hall state with edge channel transport, even in the absence of an external magnetic field. It remains unclear however why a robust magnetic state should emerge in materials of relatively low crystalline quality and dilute magnetic doping. Indeed, recent experiments suggest that the ferromagnetism exhibits at least some superparamagnetic character. We report on transport measurements in a sample that shows perfect quantum anomalous Hall quantization, while at the same time exhibits traits in its transport data which suggest inhomogeneities. We speculate that this may be evidence that the percolation path interpretation used to explain the transport during the magnetic reversal may actually have relevance over the entire field range.