Quantum Nonlinear Hall Effect Induced by Berry Curvature Dipole in Time-Reversal Invariant Materials

• Main Authors: Fu, Liang (Contributor), Sodemann Villadiego, Inti A. (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Physical Society, 2015-11-24T13:59:05Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 It is well known that a nonvanishing Hall conductivity requires broken time-reversal symmetry. However, in this work, we demonstrate that Hall-like currents can occur in second-order response to external electric fields in a wide class of time-reversal invariant and inversion breaking materials, at both zero and twice the driving frequency. This nonlinear Hall effect has a quantum origin arising from the dipole moment of the Berry curvature in momentum space, which generates a net anomalous velocity when the system is in a current-carrying state. The nonlinear Hall coefficient is a rank-two pseudotensor, whose form is determined by point group symmetry. We discus optimal conditions to observe this effect and propose candidate two- and three-dimensional materials, including topological crystalline insulators, transition metal dichalcogenides, and Weyl semimetals.