Topological insulators lacking time-reversal symmetry can exhibit the quantum anomalous Hall effect. Odd-layer thick MnBi2Te4 is a promising platform due to its intrinsic magnetic nature, however, quantization is rarely observed in it. Our magnetoresistance measurements in the anti-ferromagnetic phase indicate, instead of a quantum anomalous Hall insulator, the presence of a trivial insulator state likely due to disorder, while at high magnetic field a Chern insulator state appears. By applying hydrostatic pressure we are able to tune the magnetic interactions and the characteristic energy scales in the phase diagram. The trivial band gap is reduced, suggesting the role of disorder decreases with the compression of the layers.
@article{arxiv.2507.17449,
title = {Pressure-tunable phase transitions in atomically thin Chern insulator MnBi$_2$Te$_4$},
author = {Albin Marffy and Endre Tovari and Yu-Fei Liu and Anyuan Gao and Tianye Huang and Laszlo Oroszlany and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi and Su-Yang Xu and Peter Makk and Szabolcs Csonka},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.17449},
year = {2025}
}