TY - JOUR
T1 - Orbital magnetization in periodic insulators
AU - Thonhauser, T.
AU - Ceresoli, Davide
AU - Vanderbilt, David
AU - Resta, R.
PY - 2005/9/23
Y1 - 2005/9/23
N2 - Working in the Wannier representation, we derive an expression for the orbital magnetization of a periodic insulator. The magnetization is shown to be comprised of two contributions, an obvious one associated with the internal circulation of bulklike Wannier functions in the interior, and an unexpected one arising from net currents carried by Wannier functions near the surface. Each contribution can be expressed as a bulk property in terms of Bloch functions in a gauge-invariant way. Our expression is verified by comparing numerical tight-binding calculations for finite and periodic samples.
AB - Working in the Wannier representation, we derive an expression for the orbital magnetization of a periodic insulator. The magnetization is shown to be comprised of two contributions, an obvious one associated with the internal circulation of bulklike Wannier functions in the interior, and an unexpected one arising from net currents carried by Wannier functions near the surface. Each contribution can be expressed as a bulk property in terms of Bloch functions in a gauge-invariant way. Our expression is verified by comparing numerical tight-binding calculations for finite and periodic samples.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.137205
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.137205
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:27144449895
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 95
JO - Physical review letters
JF - Physical review letters
IS - 13
M1 - 137205
ER -