A two-dimensional kagome magnet with tunable topological phases

Abstract

Kagome magnets have garnered a lot of investigation due to their plentiful topological states and promising, strong correlated phenomena. However, there have been few reports of two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals kagome magnets. Here, we suggest a stable 2D van der Waals kagome material, V3Br8, which exhibits a ferromagnetic ground state with a Curie temperature of 89 K. Near the Fermi level, there is only a set of three kagome bands from one spin species, which possesses Van Hove singularities at the M point and a Weyl point at the K point. It is interesting that its ground state is gapless at the K point and maintains a 2D Weyl half semimetal state even in the presence of spin-orbit coupling, while when the magnetization rotates from the in-plane direction of the ground state to the out-of-plane direction, the spin-orbit coupling will open an energy gap at the K point, resulting in a topological phase transition to a quantum anomalous Hall effect state. We further demonstrate that the tensile strain can optimize the band structure and raise the Curie temperature to above 100 K. In addition, a Li atom intercalated V3Br8 (V3Br8Li) is revealed to be a stable structure that can successfully tune the Fermi level to the Weyl point while maintaining the ferromagnetic ground state. Moreover, V3Br8Li displays an out-of-plane magnetism, producing the quantum anomalous Hall effect . Our findings provide a solid foundation for future research into topological states and singular effects in 2D kagome magnets.