Intrinsic Valley-Polarized Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect and Controllable Topological Phase Transition in Janus Fe2SSe

J Phys Chem Lett. 2022 Nov 10;13(44):10297-10304. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c02794. Epub 2022 Oct 28.

Abstract

The valley-polarized quantum anomalous Hall effect (VP-QAHE) in topological materials, which usually is induced by applying external manipulations, has attracted intensive attention. Here, we predict the formation and regulation of the intrinsic VP-QAHE in ferromagnetic Janus monolayer Fe2SSe. Spontaneous valley polarization (VP) appears without external manipulations due to the Janus structure in monolayer Fe2SSe. The spontaneous VP in addition to the nonzero Chern number in Fe2SSe confirm the intrinsic VP-QAHE. Besides, the topologically protected chiral-spin-valley locking edge states can be regulated by reversing the magnetization. Topological phase transitions between metal, half-metal, topological insulator, and ferrovalley phases can be obtained by applying biaxial strains in Fe2SSe, and the nontrivial band gap reaches up to 441 meV. Also, the topological phase with the VP-QAHE is robust under certain conditions. Both the intrinsic VP-QAHE and controllable topological phase transitions can be achieved in Janus monolayer Fe2SSe, which provides an avenue for the applications of dissipationless valleytronic devices.