Abstract
A static electric field generates circulating currents at the surfaces of a magnetoelectric insulator. The anomalous Hall part of the surface conductivity tensor describing such bound currents can change by multiples of depending on the insulating surface preparation, and a bulk calculation does not fix its quantized part. To resolve this ambiguity, we develop a formalism for calculating the full surface anomalous Hall conductivity in a slab geometry. We identify a Berry-curvature term, closely related to the expression for the bulk anomalous Hall conductivity, whose value can change by quantized amounts by adjusting the surface Hamiltonian. In addition, the surface anomalous Hall conductivity contains a nongeometric part that does not depend on the surface preparation.
- Received 5 June 2018
- Revised 16 August 2018
- Corrected 18 June 2019
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.98.115108
©2018 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Corrections
18 June 2019
Correction: The NSF grant number contained an error and has been fixed.