Anomalous transport in itinerant van der Waals ferromagnets Fe$_n$GeTe$_2$ (\emph{n}=3, 4, 5)

Abstract

Ferromagnetic (FM) semimetals Fe$_n$GeTe$_2$(n=3, 4, 5), exhibit several symmetry-protected band-crossing points or lines near the Fermi energy (E$_F$) and these topological properties of energy bands lead to interesting transport properties. We study these materials employing the first-principle calculations and the tight-binding Hamiltonian constructed by fitting the parameters of the first principles calculation. In the presence of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) for n=3,5 a large Berry curvature (BC) concentrated on the nodal lines is observed. The consequence of the correlation of the topological nodal line and magnetic moments on anomalous Hall conductivity (AHC) $\sigma_{xy}$ and anomalous Nernst conductivity (ANC) $\alpha_{xy}$ have been investigated. We find $\sigma_{xy}=150$ S/cm for n=3, 295 S/cm for n=4, and 90 S/cm for n=5 at 0 K, while the ANC is observed as $\alpha_{xy}=0.55$ A/Km for n=3, 0.10 A/Km for n=5, and 0.80 A/Km for n=4, at the E$_F$ at room temperature. Our calculated AHC values at 0 K, i.e., 150 S/cm for Fe$_3$GeTe$_2$ and 90 S/cm Fe$_5$GeTe$_2$, are consistent with the experimentally reported values. Also the experimentally reported value of ANC for Fe$_5$GeTe$_2$ is close to our calculated value at room temperature, i.e., 0.10 A/Km.