Absence of Skew Scattering in Two-Dimensional Systems: Testing the Origins of the Anomalous Hall Effect

Abstract

We study the anomalous Hall conductivity in spin-polarized, asymmetrically confined two-dimensional electron and hole systems, taking into account the intrinsic, side-jump, and skew-scattering contributions to the transport. We find that the skew scattering, principally responsible for the extrinsic contribution to the anomalous Hall effect, vanishes for the two-dimensional electron system if both chiral Rashba subbands are partially occupied, and vanishes always for the two-dimensional hole gas studied here, regardless of the band filling. Our prediction can be tested with the proposed coplanar two-dimensional electron-hole gas device and can be used as a benchmark to understand the crossover from the intrinsic to the extrinsic anomalous Hall effect.