Domain wall induced spin-polarized flat bands in antiferromagnetic topological insulators

Abstract

A flat band in fermionic system is a dispersionless single-particle state with a diverging effective mass and nearly zero group velocity. These flat bands are expected to support exotic properties in the ground state, which might be important for a wide range of promising physical phenomena. For many applications it is highly desirable to have such states in Dirac materials, but so far they have been reported only in non-magnetic Dirac systems. In this work we propose a realization of topologically protected spin-polarized flat bands generated by domain walls in planar magnetic topological insulators. Using first-principles material design we suggest a family of intrinsic antiferromagnetic topological insulators with an in-plane sublattice magnetization and a high N\'eel temperature. Such systems can host domain walls in a natural manner. For these materials, we demonstrate the existence of spin-polarized flat bands in the vicinity of the Fermi level and discuss their properties and potential applications.