Impurity-induced vector spin chirality and anomalous Hall effect in ferromagnetic metals

Abstract

Scattering by multiple scatterers sometimes gives rise to nontrivial consequences such as anomalous Hall effect. We here study a mechanism for anomalous Hall effect which originates from the correlation of non-magnetic impurities and localized moments; a Hall effect induced by vector spin chirality. Using a scattering theory approach, we study the skew scattering induced by the scattering processes that involve two magnetic moments and a non-magnetic impurity, which is proportional to the vector spin chirality of the spins in the vicinity of the non-magnetic impurity. Furthermore, we show that a finite vector spin chirality naturally exists around an impurity in the usual ferromagnetic metals at finite temperature due to the local inversion-symmetry breaking by the impurity. The result is potentially relevant to magnetic oxides which the anomalous Hall effect is enhanced at finite temperatures.

Keywords

• anomalous Hall effect
• skew scattering
• spin chirality
• vector spin chirality