Critical behavior, variable range hopping, and probable topological Hall effect in VCr2Te4 single crystal

Chromium tellurides are taken as a board for probing nontrivial spin interactions. Besides changing the Cr/Te ratio or dimension, doping can also tune the physical properties of these compounds. However, only magnetic properties of doped chromium tellurides polycrystalline have been reported, and physical properties of heteroatom-substituting chromium-tellurium single crystals are few. Here, we prepared VCr2Te4 single crystals and studied the electrical transport, magnetic properties, and Hall effect of the single crystals. VCr2Te4 displays perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and a ferrimagnetic-to-paramagnetic transition at ∼74 K. Magnetic critical exponents β = 0.446(2) with TC = 74.512(1) K and γ = 1.081(2) with TC = 74.526(1) K are obtained from the Arrott–Noakes equation of states with long-range interactions between spins that decay as J(r) ≈ r−4.638, indicating intricate magnetic interactions in the VCr2Te4 single crystal. The sample shows a semiconductor-like behavior above 100 K due to variable range hopping. VCr2Te4 has n-type carriers and a larger anomalous Hall conductivity σxy ∼ 104 Ω−1 cm−1 at 3 K. Based on scaling analysis, the anomalous Hall effect mechanism is the skew scattering. A topological Hall effect can be observed up to 20 K due to the noncoplanar spin configuration. Our results reveal the interesting physical properties in VCr2Te4 single crystals and give a way to tune physical properties of chromium tellurides and design the future chromium-telluride-based device.