Anomalous Hall Effect in Ferromagnetic Semiconductors

We present a theory of the anomalous Hall effect in ferromagnetic (III, Mn)V semiconductors. Our theory relates the anomalous Hall conductance of a homogeneous ferromagnet to the Berry phase acquired by a quasiparticle wave function upon traversing closed paths on the spin-split Fermi surface. The quantitative agreement between our theory and experimental data in both (In, Mn)As and (Ga, Mn)As systems suggests that this disorder independent contribution to the anomalous Hall conductivity dominates in diluted magnetic semiconductors. The success of this model for (III, Mn)V materials is unprecedented in the longstanding effort to understand origins of the anomalous Hall effect in itinerant ferromagnets.