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Updated: Apr 1, 2026

Advanced Experimental Methods for Low-temperature Magnetotransport Measurement of Novel Materials
Published on: January 21, 2016
Observation of the Zero Hall Plateau in a Quantum Anomalous Hall Insulator
Yang Feng1, Xiao Feng1, Yunbo Ou1,2
1State Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
We report experimental investigations on the quantum phase transition between the two opposite Hall plateaus of a quantum anomalous Hall insulator. We observe a well-defined plateau with zero Hall conductivity over a range of magnetic field around coercivity when the magnetization reverses. The features of the zero Hall plateau are shown to be closely related to that of the quantum anomalous Hall effect, but its temperature evolution exhibits a significant difference from the network model for a conventional quantum Hall plateau transition. We propose that the chiral edge states residing at the magnetic domain boundaries, which are unique to a quantum anomalous Hall insulator, are responsible for the novel features of the zero Hall plateau.
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