LNS: Laboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging

Water is a ubiquitous liquid with unique physicochemical properties, whose nature has shaped our planet and life as we know it. Water in restricted geometries has different properties than in bulk. Confinement can prevent low-temperature crystalliza- tion of the molecules into a hexagonal structure and thus create a state of amorphous water. To understand the survival of life at subzero temperatures, it is essential to elucidate this behaviour in the presence of nanoconfining lipidic membranes.

The notion of a simple ordered state implies homogeneity. If the order is established by a broken symmetry, the elementary Landau theory of phase transitions shows that only one symmetry mode describes this state. At the exact points of phase coexistence, domain states composed of large regions of different phases can be stabilized by long-range interactions.

We report a proximity-driven large anomalous Hall effect in all-telluride heterostructures consisting of the ferromagnetic insulator Cr₂Ge₂Te₆ and topological insulator (Bi,Sb)₂Te₃. Despite small magnetization in the (Bi,Sb)₂Te₃ layer, the anomalous Hall conductivity reaches a large value of 0.2e^2/h in accord with a ferromagnetic response of the Cr₂Ge₂Te₆.