Anomalous magnetoresistance on the topological surface

Abstract

We report theoretical study of charge transport in two-dimensional ferromag-net/ferromagnet junction on a topological insulator. The conductance across the interface shows anomalous dependence on the directions of the magnetizations of the two ferromagnets. This stems from the way how the wavefunctions connect between both sides. It is found that the conductance depends strongly on the in-plane direction of the magnetization. Moreover, in stark contrast to the conventional magnetoresistance effect, the conductance at the parallel configuration can be much smaller than that at the antiparallel configuration.