Effective model of antiferromagnetic MnTe

Manganese telluride is a semiconductor with complicated structure of the valence band. Transport measurements of p-type thin layers exhibit various types of anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) [1,2] and its microscopic modelling can be facilitated by replacing delicate ab initio calculations with an effective six-band model. The effect of the magnetic structure on the relevant bands is derived, which is then combined with a spin-orbit interaction and crystalline dispersion term. Bandstructures generated by ab initio are compared to the model predictions and features visible in the ab initio bandstructure are given physical interpretations grounded in the model. The model is shown to predict anisotropy with respect to the Néel vector, and in particular AMR is calculated as a function of spin-orbit strength.

• [1] D. Kriegner et al., Phys. Rev. B 96, 214418 (2017).
• [2] D. Kriegner et al., Nature Communications 7, 11623 (2016)