Bilinear magnetoresistance in topological insulators: Role of magnetic disorder

Abstract

Bilinear magnetoresistance is a nonlinear transport phenomenon that scales linearly with the electric and magnetic fields, and appears in nonmagnetic systems with strong spin–orbit coupling, such as topological insulators (TIs). Using the semiclassical Boltzmann theory and generalized relaxation time approximation, we consider in detail the bilinear magnetoresistance in an effective model describing surface states of three-dimensional topological insulators. We show that the presence of magnetic impurities remarkably modifies the BMR signal. In general, scattering on magnetic impurities reduces magnitude of BMR. Apart from this, an additional modulation of the angular dependence of BMR appears when the spin-dependent component of the impurity potential dominates the scalar one.