Heavily Cr-doped (Bi,Sb)₂Te₃ as a ferromagnetic insulator with electrically tunable conductivity

Abstract

With molecular beam epitaxy we have grown Cr y (Bi x Sb 1-x ) 2-y Te 3 thin films with homogeneous distribution of Cr dopants and Curie temperature up to 77 K. The films with Cr concentration y 0.39 are found to be topologically trivial, highly insulating ferromagnets, whose conductivity can be tuned over two orders of magnitude by gate voltage. The ferromagnetic insulators with electrically tunable conductivity can be used to realize the quantum anomalous Hall effect at higher temperature in topological insulator heterostructures and to develop field effect devices for spintronic applications.