Molecular beam epitaxy growth and magneto transport of antiferromagnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 thin films

Magnetic topological insulators have gained large interest due to the observation of quantum anomalous Hall effect as well as other exotic topological phases. MnBi2Te4 was discovered as the first intrinsic antiferromagnetic topological insulator. Much of the focus has been on studying bulk single crystals down to exfoliated thin flakes of several layer thickness. However, the growth of high-quality thin films, which can in principle be several millimeters in size and down to single layer thickness, still presents a challenge. In this talk I will discuss our molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) synthesis of MnBi2Te4 thin films. We use various characterization techniques, including electron and X-ray diffraction, scanning probe microscopy and magneto transport measurements to analyze the structural and electronic properties of MnBi2Te4 films. Our work explores the possibility of fabricating ultra-thin films of magnetic topological insulators down to a few layers, which should be of high interest for future applications.