Room-Temperature Disorder-Driven Nonlinear Transport in Topological Materials

TL;DR

This paper explains room-temperature nonlinear transport in topological materials as arising from extrinsic spin-orbit effects in impurity and phonon scattering, highlighting the significance of side jump contributions for ambient condition applications.

Contribution

It identifies extrinsic spin-orbit scattering as the origin of room-temperature nonlinear signals and elucidates the roles of skew scattering and side jump effects in topological materials.

Findings

Side jump contribution remains sizable at room temperature.

Skew scattering dominates at low temperatures.

Extrinsic spin-orbit effects drive nonlinear transport in topological materials.

Abstract

Recent experiments have reported nonlinear signals in topological materials up to room temperature. Here we show that this response stems from extrinsic spin-orbit contributions to \textit{both} impurity and phonon scattering. While skew scattering dominates at low temperatures, the side jump contribution $\propto \tau/\tau_\beta$, where $\tau$, $\tau_\beta$ are the momentum and skew scattering times respectively. Consequently side jump exhibits a weak temperature dependence and remains sizable at room temperature. Our results provide a roadmap for engineering nonlinear transport at ambient conditions.