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Modulation of the anomalous Hall angle in a magnetic topological semimetal

Abstract

The anomalous Hall angle (θA) is a measure of the efficiency of converting a longitudinal driving current into a transverse spin-polarized Hall current. In sensors based on the anomalous Hall effect, a large anomalous Hall angle can improve the sensitivity of magnetic field detection. However, the modulation of this angle is challenging, and magnetic materials typically have low angles of 0.1°–3°. Here we report the modulation of θA in the magnetic Weyl semimetal Co3Sn2S2. We show that the anomalous Hall angle parameter tanθA can be formulated as a function of the product of electrical resistivity and anomalous Hall conductivity. We use this scheme to demonstrate the modulation of tanθA up to a magnitude of 0.46, corresponding to an angle of around 25°. We further fabricate anomalous Hall devices using Fe-doped Co3Sn2S2 single-crystalline nanoflakes and demonstrate a Hall sensitivity of 7,028 ± 341 μΩ cm T–1 and a magnetic field detectability of 23.5 ± 1.7 nT Hz–0.5 at 1 Hz.

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Fig. 1: Generic formula and scheme for θA.
Fig. 2: Proposed degrees of freedom for tuning \({\rho }_{xx}{\sigma }_{{\rm{H}}}^{{\rm{A}}}\) based on topological magnets.
Fig. 3: Experimental modulations of θA in Co3Sn2S2.
Fig. 4: Zero-field θA and anomalous Hall sensing.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. Yan for valuable discussions. This work was supported by the State Key Development Program for Basic Research of China (no. 2022YFA1403800, to B.W.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 11974394, to E.L.; no. 12174426, to H.W.), the CAS Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research YSBR-057 (to M.L.), the Strategic Priority Research Program (B) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (no. XDB33000000, to E.L.), the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF, to E.L.) and the Scientific Instrument Developing Project of CAS (no. ZDKYYQ20210003, to E.L.).

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Authors

Contributions

E.L. conceived and supervised the project. X.D. and M.L. synthesized the Co3Sn2S2 bulks. J.Y., Q.Z. and S.Z. grew the nanoflakes. J.Y., Y. Wang and Y.L. carried out the X-ray diffraction measurements. J.Y. and Y. Wang performed the magnetic measurements of the bulks using a vibrating sample magnetometer. Y.S. and G.L. performed the magnetic measurements of the nanoflakes by NV centres. J.Y. and X.L. performed the fabrication of Hall devices and the measurements of anomalous Hall sensing. J.Y., B.W., H.W., Y. Wu, S.P., G.L., C.F., E.L. and B.S. analysed and discussed the experimental data. J.Y. and E.L. wrote this manuscript with input from all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Enke Liu.

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The authors have applied for a Chinese patent (no. 2025101128621) for anomalous Hall sensors based on a large anomalous Hall angle and their preparation methods, which is now under consideration.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–21, Equations (1)–(9), Table 1 and References.

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Yang, J., Shang, Y., Liu, X. et al. Modulation of the anomalous Hall angle in a magnetic topological semimetal. Nat Electron 8, 386–393 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-025-01364-8

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