Beyond Superexchange: Emergent Unconventional Ferromagnetism in Thin-Film Sandwich Structures of Intrinsic Magnetic Topological Insulators

In this work, we investigate the nature of magnetic interactions in intrinsic magnetic topological insulator Mn(Bi1-xSbx)2Te4 (MBST in short) systems, which possesses highly-ordered ferromagnetic septuple-layers (SLs), using two types of structures: MBST(1 SL)/(Bi1-xSbx)2Te3 heterostructures and MBST(1 SL)/(Bi1-xSbx)2Te3/MBST(1 SL) sandwich structures. The out-of-plane magnetization in the sandwich structure turned out to be significantly larger than that in the heterostructure, indicating that the interlayer magnetic interaction between two MBST layers is ferromagnetic. Furthermore, the Curie temperature increased with decreasing the in-plane Mn-Mn distance in the MBST layer, which suggests the enhancement of the intralayer ferromagnetic interaction within each MBST layer. Meanwhile, in the sandwich structures with various spacer thicknesses, the Curie temperature with the spacer layer was higher than that with no spacer layer. In addition, the curve shape of anomalous Hall effects for the sandwich structure was almost unchanged by carrier-density modulation, which implies that the ferromagnetism in this system is carrier-independent. Based on the above results, magnetic behaviors in our systems cannot be explained only by the direct exchange nor superexchange interactions reported previously for MBST systems, and are instead proposed to arise from topology-related mechanisms such as the van Vleck and Bloembergen-Rowland mechanisms. This work provides a new perspective on magnetic mechanisms in MBST systems, which helps us to realize next-generation spintronic and electronic devices by flexibly controlling magnetism in intrinsic magnetic topological insulators.