Room-Temperature Disorder-Driven 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 $\propto \ddot{I}„/\ddot{I}{„}_{\hat{I}}^2$, where $\ddot{I}„$, $\ddot{I}{„}_{\hat{I}}^2$ 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.

7 pages, 5 figures