Giant impurity effect on anomalous Hall effect of Mn3Sn

Abstract

Mn3Sn is an anomalous Hall effect (AHE) antiferromagnet that exhibits the hysteretic AHE in antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase at room temperature. We report that whisker Mn3Sn crystals grown by the flux method exhibit a non-hysteretic AHE at mid-to-low temperatures when the whisker Mn3Sn is surrounded by a thin layer of ferromagnetic Mn2−xSn. These crystals exhibit a hysteretic AHE above 275 K due to the spin alignment of the inverse triangular lattice, which is similar to other crystals. However, upon cooling the crystal, it exhibits a non-hysteretic AHE with a spiral AFM spin structure at 100–200 K. We concluded that the non-hysteretic AHE is induced at the interface of Mn2−xSn/Mn3Sn. We believe that the scalar-spin chirality in the spiral AFM phase of Mn3Sn, modulated by Mn2−xSn through the magnetic proximity effect, produces the AHE. This discovery opens a new avenue for tailoring the AHE by magnetic layers.