Quantum anomalous Hall effect in atomic crystal layers from in-plane magnetization

Abstract

We theoretically demonstrate that with in-plane magnetization, the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) can be realized in two-dimensional atomic crystal layers with preserved inversion symmetry but broken out-of-plane mirror reflection symmetry. By taking the honeycomb lattice system as an example, we find that the low-buckled structure satisfying the symmetry criteria is crucial to induce QAHE. The topologically nontrivial bulk gap carrying a Chern number of $\mathcal{C}=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1$ opens in the vicinity of the saddle points $M$, where the band dispersion exhibits strong anisotropy. We further show that the QAHE with electrically tunable Chern number can be achieved in Bernal-stacked multilayer systems, and the applied interlayer potential differences can dramatically decrease the critical magnetization to make the QAHE experimentally feasible.