Quantum anomalous Hall effect in atomic crystal layers from in-plane magnetization

We theoretically demonstrate that with in-plane magnetization, the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) can be realized in two-dimensional atomic crystal layers with preserved inversion symmetry but broken out-of-plane mirror reflection symmetry. By taking the honeycomb lattice system as an example, we find that the low-buckled structure satisfying the symmetry criteria is crucial to induce QAHE. The topologically nontrivial bulk gap carrying a Chern number of C = +/- 1 opens in the vicinity of the saddle points M, where the band dispersion exhibits strong anisotropy. We further show that the QAHE with electrically tunable Chern number can be achieved in Bernal-stacked multilayer systems, and the applied interlayer potential differences can dramatically decrease the critical magnetization to make the QAHE experimentally feasible.