Two Dimensional Antiferromagnetic Chern Insulator: NiRuCl6

Density functional theory (DFT) and Berry curvature calculations show that quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) can be realized in two-dimensional(2D) antiferromagnetic (AFM) NiRuCl6. The results indicate that NiRuCl6 behaves as an AFM Chern insulator and its spin-polarized electronic structure and strong spin–orbit coupling (SOC) are responsible for the QAHE. By tuning SOC, we found that the topological property of NiRuCl6 arises from its energy band inversion. Considering the compatibility between the AFM and insulators, AFM Chern insulator provides a new way to archive high temperature QAHE in experiments due to its different magnetic coupling mechanism from that of ferromagnetic (FM) Chern insulator.