Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten

DS 54: Symposium on Frontiers of Electronic Structure Theory: Focus on Topology and Transport
(Joint symposium of DS, HL, MA, MM and O, organized by O)

DS 54.1: Invited Talk

Friday, March 11, 2016, 09:30–10:00, H1

Intrinsic Transport Coefficients and Momentum Space Berry Curvatures — •Allan H MacDonald — University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX, USA

The response of a conductor to a bias voltage is normally dominated by repopulation of states near the Fermi level. The transport steady state is fixed by a competition between acceleration in an electric field and disorder-induced scattering which attempts to restore equilibrium. This response of observables to a bias voltage is therefore extrinsic. There is however also response of states away from the Fermi level, which are polarized by the electric field. Provided that the typical band separation is larger than the finite life-time uncertainty in Bloch state energies this response is intrinsic, and for some observables it can be dominant. Intrinsic response coefficients are attractive targets for electronic structure theory because they are readily evaluated. Examples of responses to bias voltages that are sometimes dominantly intrinsic are the anomalous Hall conductivity of ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic conductors, the spin-Hall conductivity of heavy metals, and current-induced torques in heavy-metal/ferromagnet systems. Intrinsic transport coefficients tend to be large in crystals with large momentum-space Berry curvatures, for example in crystals with topologically non-trivial electronic structure, and remain finite when a gap opens at the Fermi level to eliminate the Fermi surface. I will discuss some important examples of transport coefficients that are dominated by intrinsic contributions, mentioning as an important case the quantum anomalous Hall effect.