Physical Society Colloquium

Geometric Phase Effects on electronic Properties

Qian Niu

Department of Physics
University of Texas at Austin

Ever since its discovery the notion of Berry phase has permeated through all branches of physics. Over the past three decades it was gradually realized that the Berry phase of the electronic wavefunction can have a profound effect on material properties and is responsible for a spectrum of phenomena, such as polarization, orbital magnetism, various quantum, anomalous, or spin Hall effects, and quantum charge pumping. In this talk, I will present a semiclassical picture, to show how electronic properties, as linear and second order responses to electromagnetic fields, are affected by Berry curvatures in the momentum space.