Anomalous Hall effect in a two-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit interaction

TL;DR

This paper investigates the anomalous Hall effect in a 2D electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit interaction, highlighting the roles of intrinsic Berry phase contributions and impurity scattering in determining Hall conductivity.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the intrinsic and impurity-induced mechanisms of the anomalous Hall effect in a 2D electron gas with spin-orbit coupling.

Findings

Intrinsic Berry phase mechanism can dominate the Hall effect.

Impurity scattering competes with intrinsic contributions.

States near the Fermi surface also contribute intrinsically.

Abstract

We discuss the mechanism of anomalous Hall effect related to the contribution of electron states below the Fermi surface (induced by the Berry phase in momentum space). Our main calculations are made within a model of two-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit interaction of the Rashba type, taking into account the scattering from impurities. We demonstrate that such an "intrinsic" mechanism can dominate but there is a competition with the impurity-scattering mechanism, related to the contribution of states in the vicinity of Fermi surface. We also show that the contribution to the Hall conductivity from electron states close to the Fermi surface has the intrinsic properties as well.