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In ferromagnets, electric current generally induces transverse Hall voltage in proportion to magnetization (anomalous Hall effect), and it is frequently used for electrical readout of the up and down spin states. While these properties are usually not expected in antiferromagnets, recent theoretical studies predicted that non-coplanar antiferromagnetic order with finite scalar spin chirality (i.e. solid angle spanned by neighboring spins) can often induce large spontaneous Hall effect even without net magnetization or external magnetic field. This phenomenon, i.e. spontaneous topological Hall effect, can potentially be used for the efficient electrical readout of the antiferromagnetic states, but its experimental verification has long been elusive due to the lack of appropriate materials hosting such exotic magnetism. Here, we report the discovery of all-in-all-out type non-coplanar antiferromagnetic order in triangular lattice compounds CoTa3S6 and CoNb3S6, by performing the detailed magnetic structure analysis based on polarized neutron scattering experiments as well as systematic first-principles calculations. These compounds are reported to host unconventionally large spontaneous Hall effect despite their vanishingly small net magnetization, and our analysis revealed that it can be well explained in terms of topological Hall effect, which originates from the fictitious magnetic field associated with scalar spin chirality in non-coplanar antiferromagnetic orders. The present results indicate that the scalar spin chirality mechanism can offer a promising route to realize giant spontaneous Hall response even in compensated antiferromagnets, and highlight intercalated van der Waals magnets as an unique quasi-two-dimensional material platform to enable various nontrivial manner of electrical reading and possible writing of non-coplanar antiferromagnetic domains., Comment: to appear in Nature Physics

The interplay between electron correlation and topology of relativistic electrons may lead to a new stage of the research on quantum materials and emergent functions. The emergence of various collective electronic orderings/liquids, which are tunable by external stimuli, is a remarkable feature of correlated electron systems, but has rarely been realized in the topological semimetals with high-mobility relativistic electrons. Here, we report that the correlated Dirac electrons with the Mott criticality in perovskite CaIrO$_3$ show unconventional field-induced successive metal-insulator-metal crossovers in the quantum limit accompanying a giant magnetoresistance (MR) with MR ratio of 3,500 % (18 T and 1.4 K). The analysis shows that the insulating state originates from the collective electronic ordering such as charge/spin density wave promoted by electron correlation, whereas it turns into the quasi-one-dimensional metal at higher fields due to the field-induced reduction of chemical potential, highlighting the highly field-sensitive character of correlated Dirac electrons., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

Cd$_3$As$_2$ is one of the prototypical topological Dirac semimetals. Here, we manipulate the band inversion responsible for the emergence of Dirac nodes by alloying Cd$_3$As$_2$ with topologically trivial Zn$_3$As$_2$. We observe the expected topological phase transition around a Zn concentration of $x\sim 1$ while the carrier density monotonically decreases as $x$ is increased. For larger $x$, the thermoelectric figure of merit exhibits comparably large values exceeding 0.3 at room temperature, due to the combined effects of a strong enhancement of the thermopower, an only moderate increase of the resistivity, and a suppression of the thermal conductivity. Complementary quantum-oscillation data and optical-conductivity measurements allow to infer that the enhanced thermoelectric performance is due to a flattening of the band structure in the higher-$x$ region in Cd$_{3-x}$Zn$_x$As$_2$., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures

Unconventional features of relativistic Dirac/Weyl quasi-particles in topological materials are most evidently manifested in the 2D quantum Hall effect (QHE), whose variety is further enriched by their spin and/or valley polarization. Although its extension to three dimensions has been long-sought and inspired theoretical proposals, material candidates have been lacking. Here we have discovered valley-contrasting spin-polarized Dirac fermions in a multilayer form in bulk antiferromagnet BaMnSb$_2$, where the out-of-plane Zeeman-type spin splitting is induced by the in-plane inversion symmetry breaking and spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in the distorted Sb square net. Furthermore, we have observed well-defined quantized Hall plateaus together with vanishing interlayer conductivity at low temperatures as a hallmark of the half-integer QHE in a bulk form. The Hall conductance of each layer is found to be nearly quantized to $2(N+1/2)e^2/h$ with $N$ being the Landau index, which is consistent with two spin-polarized Dirac valleys protected by the strong spin-valley coupling., Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures. Accepted in Phys. Rev. B (Rapid Communication)

The correlation between magnetic properties and microscopic structural aspects in the diluted magnetic semiconductor Ge$_{1-x}$Mn$_{x}$Te is investigated by x-ray diffraction and magnetization as a function of the Mn concentration $x$. The occurrence of high ferromagnetic-transition temperatures in the rhombohedrally distorted phase of slowly-cooled Ge$_{1-x}$Mn$_{x}$Te is shown to be directly correlated with the formation and coexistence of strongly-distorted Mn-poor and weakly-distorted Mn-rich regions. It is demonstrated that the weakly-distorted phase fraction is responsible for the occurrence of high-transition temperatures in Ge$_{1-x}$Mn$_{x}$Te. When the Mn concentration becomes larger, the Mn-rich regions start to switch into the undistorted cubic structure, and the transition temperature is suppressed concurrently. By identifying suitable annealing conditions, we successfully increased the transition temperature to above 200 K for Mn concentrations close to the cubic phase. Structural data indicate that the weakly-distorted phase fraction can be restored at the expense of the cubic regions upon the enhancement of the transition temperature, clearly establishing the direct link between high-transition temperatures and the weakly-distorted Mn-rich phase fraction., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures

Ferroelectrics with spontaneous electric polarization play an essential role in today's device engineering, such as capacitors and memories. Their physical properties are further enriched by suppressing the long-range polar order, as is exemplified by quantum paraelectrics with giant piezoelectric and dielectric responses at low temperatures. Likewise in metals, a polar lattice distortion has been theoretically predicted to give rise to various unusual physical properties. So far, however, a "ferroelectric"-like transition in metals has seldom been controlled and hence its possible impacts on transport phenomena remain unexplored. Here we report the discovery of anomalous enhancement of thermopower near the critical region between the polar and nonpolar metallic phases in 1T'-Mo$_{1-x}$Nb$_{x}$Te$_2$ with a chemically tunable polar transition. It is unveiled from the first-principles calculations and magnetotransport measurements that charge transport with strongly energy-dependent scattering rate critically evolves towards the boundary to the nonpolar phase, resulting in large cryogenic thermopower. Such a significant influence of the structural instability on transport phenomena might arise from the fluctuating or heterogeneous polar metallic states, which would pave a novel route to improving thermoelectric efficiency., Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures

The ordered hexagonal perovskite Ba2CuTeO6 hosts weakly coupled S=1/2 spin ladders produced by an orbital ordering of Cu2+. The magnetic susceptibility chi(T) of Ba2CuTeO6 is well described by that expected for isolated spin ladders with exchange coupling of J~86 K but shows a deviation from the expected thermally activated behavior at low temperatures below T*~25 K. An anomaly in chi(T), indicative of magnetic ordering, is observed at T_mag=16 K. No clear signature of long-range ordering, however, is captured in NMR, specific heat or neutron diffraction measurements at and below T_mag. The marginal magnetic transition, indicative of strong quantum fluctuations, is evidence that Ba2CuTeO6 is in very close proximity to a quantum critical point between a magnetically ordered phase and a gapped spin liquid controlled by inter-ladder couplings., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Supplemental material included as an ancillary file

Binary ruthenium pnictides, RuP and RuAs, with an orthorhombic MnP structure, were found to show a metal to a non-magnetic insulator transition at TMI = 270 K and 200 K, respectively. In the metallic region above TMI, a structural phase transition, accompanied by a weak anomaly in the resistivity and the magnetic susceptibility, indicative of a pseudo-gap formation, was identified at Ts = 330 K and 280 K, respectively. These two transitions were suppressed by substituting Ru with Rh. We found superconductivity with a maximum Tc = 3.7 K and Tc =1.8 K in a narrow composition range around the critical point for the pseudo-gap phase, Rh content xc = 0.45 and xc = 0.25 for Ru1-xRhxP and Ru1-xRhxAs, respectively, which may provide us with a novel non-magnetic route to superconductivity at a quantum critical point., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett

We investigate LiVS2 and LiVSe2 with a triangular lattice as itinerant analogues of LiVO2, known for the formation of valence bond solid (VBS) state out of S = 1 frustrated magnet. LiVS2, which is located at the border between a metal and a correlated insulator, shows a first ordered transition from a paramagnetic metal to a VBS insulator at Tc ~ 305 K upon cooling. The presence of VBS state in the close vicinity of insulator-metal transition may suggest the importance of itinerancy in the formation of VBS state. We argue that the high temperature metallic phase of LiVS2 has a pseudo-gap, likely originating from the VBS fluctuation. LiVSe2 was found to be a paramagnetic metal down to 2 K., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures