Chern-Simons orbital magnetoelectric coupling in generic insulators

Sinisa Coh, David Vanderbilt, Andrei Malashevich, and Ivo Souza
Phys. Rev. B 83, 085108 – Published 23 February 2011

Abstract

We present a Wannier-based method to calculate the Chern-Simons orbital magnetoelectric coupling in the framework of first-principles density-functional theory. In view of recent developments in connection with strong Z2 topological insulators, we anticipate that the Chern-Simons contribution to the magnetoelectric coupling could, in special cases, be as large or larger than the total magnetoelectric coupling in known magnetoelectrics, such as Cr2O3. The results of our calculations for the ordinary magnetoelectrics Cr2O3, BiFeO3, and GdAlO3 confirm that the Chern-Simons contribution is quite small in these cases. On the other hand, we show that, if the spatial-inversion and time-reversal symmetries of the Z2 topological insulator Bi2Se3 are broken by hand, large induced changes appear in the Chern-Simons magnetoelectric coupling.

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  • Received 28 October 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.83.085108

©2011 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Sinisa Coh1,*, David Vanderbilt1, Andrei Malashevich2, and Ivo Souza3

  • 1Department of Physics Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8019, USA
  • 2Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 3Centro de Física de Materiales and DIPC, Universidad del País Vasco, 20018 San Sebastián, Spain and Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, E-48011 Bilbao, Spain

  • *sinisa@physics.rutgers.edu

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Issue

Vol. 83, Iss. 8 — 15 February 2011

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