Epitaxial Growth and Domain Structure Imaging of Kagome Magnet Fe$_3$Sn$_2$

Abstract

Magnetic materials with kagome crystal structure exhibit rich physics such as frustrated magnetism, skyrmion formation, topological flat bands, and Dirac/Weyl points. Until recently, most studies on kagome magnets have been performed on bulk crystals or polycrystalline films. Here we report the synthesis of high-quality epitaxial films of topological kagome magnet Fe3Sn2 by atomic layer molecular beam epitaxy. Structural and magnetic characterization of Fe3Sn2 on epitaxial Pt(111) identifies highly ordered films with c-plane orientation and an in-plane magnetic easy axis. Studies of the local magnetic structure by anomalous Nernst effect imaging reveals in-plane oriented micrometer size domains. The realization of high-quality films by atomic layer molecular beam epitaxy opens the door to explore the rich physics of this system and investigate novel spintronic phenomena by interfacing Fe3Sn2 with other materials.