Observation of the Anomalous Hall Effect in a Collinear Antiferromagnet

Understand

Time-reversal symmetry breaking is the basic physics concept underpinning many magnetic topological phenomena such as the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) and its quantized variant.

• The AHE has been primarily accompanied by a ferromagnetic dipole moment, which hinders the topological quantum states and limits data density in memory devices, or by a delicate noncollinear magnetic order with strong spin decoherence, both limiting their applicability.
• A potential breakthrough is the recent theoretical prediction of the AHE arising from collinear antiferromagnetism in an anisotropic crystal environment.
• This new mechanism does not require magnetic dipolar or noncollinear fields.