Generating a topological anomalous Hall effect in a non-magnetic conductor

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a new intrinsic Hall effect in non-magnetic 2D semiconductors caused by Berry curvature, called the anomalous planar Hall effect, which occurs without Lorentz force or disorder contributions.

Contribution

It introduces the anomalous planar Hall effect (APHE), a topological transport phenomenon in non-magnetic conductors driven by Berry curvature monopoles.

Findings

The APHE is linear in in-plane magnetic field B_x.

Disorder contributions vanish to leading order in B_x.

The effect is observable in p-type semiconductors.

Abstract

The ordinary Hall effect is driven by the Lorentz force, while its anomalous counterpart occurs in ferromagnets. Here we show that the Berry curvature monopole of non-magnetic 2D spin-3/2 holes leads to a novel Hall effect linear in an applied in-plane magnetic field B_x. There is no Lorentz force hence no ordinary Hall effect, while all disorder contributions vanish to leading order in B_x. This intrinsic phenomenon, which we term the anomalous planar Hall effect (APHE), provides a non-quantized footprint of topological transport directly accessible in p-type semiconductors.