Electrically tuneable nonlinear anomalous Hall effect in two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides WTe2 and MoTe2

Yang Zhang; Jeroen Van Den Brink; Claudia Felser; Binghai Yan

doi:10.1088/2053-1583/aad1ae

Electrically tuneable nonlinear anomalous Hall effect in two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides WTe₂ and MoTe₂

Yang Zhang
, Jeroen Van Den Brink
, Claudia Felser
, Binghai Yan

Materials Theory

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

130 Scopus citations

Abstract

We studied the nonlinear electric response in WTe₂ and MoTe₂ monolayers. When the inversion symmetry is breaking but the the time-reversal symmetry is preserved, a second-order Hall effect called the nonlinear anomalous Hall effect (NLAHE) emerges owing to the nonzero Berry curvature on the nonequilibrium Fermi surface. We reveal a strong NLAHE with a Hall-voltage that is quadratic with respect to the longitudinal current. The optimal current direction is normal to the mirror plane in these two-dimensional (2D) materials. The NLAHE can be sensitively tuned by an out-of-plane electric field, which induces a transition from a topological insulator to a normal insulator. Crossing the critical transition point, the magnitude of the NLAHE increases, and its sign is reversed. Our work paves the way to discover exotic nonlinear phenomena in inversion-symmetry-breaking 2D materials.

Original language	English
Article number	044001
Journal	2D Materials
Volume	5
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1088/2053-1583/aad1ae
State	Published - Jul 20 2018

Funding

YZ, JvdB and CF thank financial support by the German Research Foundation (DFG, SFB 1143). CF acknowledges the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant (No. 742068) ‘TOPMAT’. BY is supported by a research grant from the Benoziyo Endowment Fund for the Advancement of Science. Note added. In the review process, we were aware two works that reported similar results [45, 46],which were posted several days after our work appearing in arXiv.

Keywords

Hall effect
Nonlinear response
Topology
Transition metal chalcogenides

Access to Document

10.1088/2053-1583/aad1ae

Cite this

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title = "Electrically tuneable nonlinear anomalous Hall effect in two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides WTe2 and MoTe2",

abstract = "We studied the nonlinear electric response in WTe2 and MoTe2 monolayers. When the inversion symmetry is breaking but the the time-reversal symmetry is preserved, a second-order Hall effect called the nonlinear anomalous Hall effect (NLAHE) emerges owing to the nonzero Berry curvature on the nonequilibrium Fermi surface. We reveal a strong NLAHE with a Hall-voltage that is quadratic with respect to the longitudinal current. The optimal current direction is normal to the mirror plane in these two-dimensional (2D) materials. The NLAHE can be sensitively tuned by an out-of-plane electric field, which induces a transition from a topological insulator to a normal insulator. Crossing the critical transition point, the magnitude of the NLAHE increases, and its sign is reversed. Our work paves the way to discover exotic nonlinear phenomena in inversion-symmetry-breaking 2D materials.",

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AB - We studied the nonlinear electric response in WTe2 and MoTe2 monolayers. When the inversion symmetry is breaking but the the time-reversal symmetry is preserved, a second-order Hall effect called the nonlinear anomalous Hall effect (NLAHE) emerges owing to the nonzero Berry curvature on the nonequilibrium Fermi surface. We reveal a strong NLAHE with a Hall-voltage that is quadratic with respect to the longitudinal current. The optimal current direction is normal to the mirror plane in these two-dimensional (2D) materials. The NLAHE can be sensitively tuned by an out-of-plane electric field, which induces a transition from a topological insulator to a normal insulator. Crossing the critical transition point, the magnitude of the NLAHE increases, and its sign is reversed. Our work paves the way to discover exotic nonlinear phenomena in inversion-symmetry-breaking 2D materials.

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