Fully spin-polarized Weyl fermions and in/out-of-plane quantum anomalous Hall effects in a two-dimensional d0 ferromagnet

Abstract

The quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) in intrinsic ferromagnets has attracted considerable attention recently. Previously, studies of the QAHE have mostly focused on the default assumption of out-of-plane magnetization. In fact, the QAHE can also be achieved via in-plane magnetization, but such candidate materials are very scarce. Here, we find that two-dimensional (2D) YN₂ not only possesses the previously reported out-of-plane QAHE, but it also possesses a tunable in-plane QAHE. More importantly, unlike the previously reported in-plane QAHE in d/f-type ferromagnets, here we report the effect in a 2D d⁰ ferromagnet, namely YN₂, for the first time. In the ground state, a YN₂ monolayer has a half-metal band structure, and manifests six pairs of fully spin-polarized Weyl points at the Fermi level. When spin–orbit coupling is included, the YN₂ monolayer can realize multiple topological phases, determined based on the magnetization direction. Under in-plane magnetization, the YN₂ monolayer shows either the Weyl state or in-plane QAHE state. Remarkably, the Chern number (±1) and the propagating direction of QAHE edge channels can be continuously switched via shifting the direction of the in-plane magnetic field. When magnetization is applied out-of-plane, the YN₂ monolayer realizes an out-of-plane QAHE phase with a high Chern number of 3. The nontrivial edge states for all the topological phases in the YN₂ monolayer have been clearly identified. This work suggests that 2D YN₂ is an excellent candidate for investigating in-plane QAHE phases in d⁰ ferromagnets.