We report a current scaling study of a quantum phase transition between a quantum anomalous Hall insulator and a trivial insulator on the surface of a heterostructure film of magnetic topological insulators. The transition was observed by tilting the magnetization while measuring the Hall conductivity σxy. The transition curves of σxy taken under various excitation currents cross each other at a single point, exemplifying a quantum critical behavior of the transition. The slopes of the transition curves follow a power law dependence of the excitation current, giving a scaling exponent. Combining with the result of the previous temperature scaling study, critical exponents ν for the localization length and p for the coherence length are separately evaluated as ν = 2.8 ± 0.3 and p = 3.3 ± 0.3.
@article{arxiv.2007.01197,
title = {Current scaling of the topological quantum phase transition between a quantum anomalous Hall insulator and a trivial insulator},
author = {Minoru Kawamura and Masataka Mogi and Ryutaro Yoshimi and Atsushi Tsukazaki and Yusuke Kozuka and Kei S. Takahashi and Masashi Kawasaki and Yoshinori Tokura},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.01197},
year = {2020}
}