A peculiar topological Hall effect in noncentrosymmetric ternary carbide GdCoC2

Abstract

A peculiar topological Hall effect (THE) is reported in a noncentrosymmetric ternary carbide GdCoC2. The GdCoC2 reveals a magnetic ordering transition from paramagnetic to ferromagnetic state at the Curie temperature TC = 15.6 K, followed by a commensurate-incommensurate phase transition at Tt = 14.1 K. Below Tt, the competition between an external magnetic field and magnetic interactions, including the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction, would give rise to characteristic spin textures with non-zero scalar spin chirality χijk, or even topologically protected spin configurations like skyrmions, for which the exotic spin-charge coupled phenomena are induced. Besides a large negative magnetoresistance (MR) up to ∼−52% at 14 K, a remarkably sharp topological Hall signal is observed with almost no anomalous Hall resistivity below 10 K. The topological Hall resistivity (ρxyT) of GdCoC2 reaches a maximum value of ∼0.23 μΩ cm at 3 K under μ0H = 0.6 T. The mechanism underlying the exceptional THE with relatively large ρxyT value in GdCoC2 is discussed in detail.