Temperature dependence of side-jump contribution to anomalous and spin Hall conductivities

Cong Xiao, Yi Liu, Zhe Yuan, Shengyuan A. Yang, Qian Niu

Published 2018-11-08Version 1

The side-jump contribution to anomalous/spin Hall conductivities is conventionally understood to be a constant independent of both the scattering strength and density of scatterers, even though it depends on the type of scatterer. In this work, we reveal that the side-jump contribution due to electron-phonon scattering, the primary source of scattering in clean samples, can in fact acquire substantial temperature dependence when the temperature drops below the high-temperature classical regime of equipartition law. We demonstrate this phenomenon in an analytic model, supplemented by a first-principles calculation for pure Pt. Experimentally accessible high-purity Pt is proposed to be suitable for observing the predicted prominent variation of the spin Hall conductivity below 80 K.