Spatially dispersive circular photogalvanic effect in a Weyl semimetal
Source abstract
Abstract
Weyl semimetals (WSMs) are gapless topological states of matter with broken inversion and/or time reversal symmetry. WSMs can support a circulating photocurrent when illuminated by circularly polarized light at normal incidence. Here, we report a spatially dispersive circular photogalvanic effect (s-CPGE) in a WSM that occurs with a spatially varying beam profile. Our analysis shows that the s-CPGE is controlled by a symmetry selection rule combined with asymmetric carrier excitation and relaxation dynamics. By evaluating the s-CPGE for a minimal model of a WSM, a frequency-dependent scaling behaviour of the photocurrent is obtained. Wavelength-dependent measurements from the visible to mid-infrared range show evidence of Berry curvature singularities and band inversion in the s-CPGE response. We present the s-CPGE as a promising spectroscopic probe for topological band properties, with the potential for controlling photoresponse by patterning optical fields on topological materials to store, manipulate and transmit information.
Source: europepmc · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Topological Materials and Phenomena · Quantum Mechanics and Non-Hermitian Physics · Metamaterials and Metasurfaces Applications
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (45)
Show source-provided references
1. Kane, C. L. & Mele, E. J. Z 2 topological order and the quantum spin Hall effect. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 146802 (2005).10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.146802 ↗
2. Hasan, M. Z. & Kane, C. L. Colloquium: topological insulators. Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 3045–3067 (2010).10.1103/RevModPhys.82.3045 ↗
3. Qi, X.-L. & Zhang, S.-C. Topological insulators and superconductors. Rev. Mod. Phys. 83, 1057–1110 (2011).10.1103/RevModPhys.83.1057 ↗
4. Wan, X., Turner, A. M., Vishwanath, A. & Savrasov, S. Y. Topological semimetal and Fermi-arc surface states in the electronic structure of pyrochlore iridates. Phys. Rev. B 83, 205101 (2011).10.1103/PhysRevB.83.205101 ↗
5. Armitage, N., Mele, E. & Vishwanath, A. Weyl and Dirac semimetals in three-dimensional solids. Rev. Mod. Phys. 90, 015001 (2018).10.1103/RevModPhys.90.015001 ↗
6. Soluyanov, A. A. et al. Type-II Weyl semimetals. Nature 527, 495–498 (2015).10.1038/nature15768 ↗
7. Burkov, A. & Balents, L. Weyl semimetal in a topological insulator multilayer. Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 127205 (2011).10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.127205 ↗
8. Nielsen, H. B. & Ninomiya, M. The Adler–Bell–Jackiw anomaly and Weyl fermions in a crystal. Phys, Lett. B 130, 389–396 (1983).10.1016/0370-2693(83)91529-0 ↗
9. Zyuzin, A. & Burkov, A. Topological response in Weyl semimetals and the chiral anomaly. Phys. Rev. B 86, 115133 (2012).10.1103/PhysRevB.86.115133 ↗
10. Potter, A., Kimchi, I. & Vishwanath, A. Quantum oscillations from surface Fermi arcs in Weyl and Dirac semimetals. Nat. Commun. 5, 5161 (2014).10.1038/ncomms6161 ↗
11. Hosur, P. & Qi, X.-L. Recent developments in transport phenomena in Weyl semimetals. CR Phys. 14, 857–870 (2013).10.1016/j.crhy.2013.10.010 ↗
12. Xiong, J. et al. Evidence for the chiral anomaly in the Dirac semimetal Na3Bi. Science 350, 413–416 (2015).10.1126/science.aac6089 ↗
13. Ma, Q. et al. Direct optical detection of Weyl fermion chirality in a topological semimetal. Nat. Phys. 13, 842–847 (2017).10.1038/nphys4146 ↗
14. Wu, L. et al. Giant anisotropic nonlinear optical response in transition metal monopnictide Weyl semimetals. Nat. Phys. 13, 350–355 (2017).10.1038/nphys3969 ↗
15. Morimoto, T., Zhong, S., Orenstein, J. & Moore, J. E. Semiclassical theory of nonlinear magneto-optical responses with applications to topological Dirac/Weyl semimetals. Phys. Rev. B 94, 245121 (2016).10.1103/PhysRevB.94.245121 ↗
16. Chan, C.-K., Lindner, N. H., Refael, G. & Lee, P. A. Photocurrents in Weyl semimetals. Phys. Rev. B 95, 041104 (2017).10.1103/PhysRevB.95.041104 ↗
17. König, E., Xie, H.-Y., Pesin, D. & Levchenko, A. Photogalvanic effect in Weyl semimetals. Phys. Rev. B 96, 075123 (2017).10.1103/PhysRevB.96.075123 ↗
18. Zhang, Y., Sun, Y. & Yan, B. Berry curvature dipole in Weyl semimetal materials: an ab initio study. Phys. Rev. B 97, 041101 (2018).10.1103/PhysRevB.97.041101 ↗
19. de Juan, F., Grushin, A. G., Morimoto, T. & Moore, J. E. Quantized circular photogalvanic effect in Weyl semimetals. Nat. Commun. 8, 15995 (2017).10.1038/ncomms15995 ↗
20. Wang, Z. et al. MoTe2: a type-II Weyl topological metal. Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 056805 (2016).10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.056805 ↗
21. Huang, L. Spectroscopic evidence for a type-II Weyl semimetallic state in MoTe2. Nat. Mater. 15, 1155–1160 (2016).10.1038/nmat4685 ↗
22. Belopolski, I. et al. Discovery of a new type of topological Weyl fermion semimetal state in MoxW1−xTe2. Nat. Commun. 7, 13643 (2016).10.1038/ncomms13643 ↗
23. Chang, T.-R. et al. Prediction of an arc-tunable Weyl Fermion metallic state in MoxW1−xTe2. Nat. Commun. 7, 10639 (2016).10.1038/ncomms10639 ↗
24. Zhang, K. et al. Raman signatures of inversion symmetry breaking and structural phase transition in type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe2. Nat. Commun. 7, 13552 (2016).10.1038/ncomms13552 ↗
25. Deng, K. et al. Experimental observation of topological Fermi arcs in type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe2. Nat. Phys. 12, 1105–1110 (2016).10.1038/nphys3871 ↗
26. Belopolski, I. et al. Topological Weyl phase transition in MoxW1−xTe2. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.07793 (2016).
27. Dhara, S., Mele, E. J. & Agarwal, R. Voltage-tunable circular photogalvanic effect in silicon nanowires. Science 349, 726–729 (2015).10.1126/science.aac6275 ↗
28. McIver, J., Hsieh, D., Steinberg, H., Jarillo-Herrero, P. & Gedik, N. Control over topological insulator photocurrents with light polarization. Nat. Nanotech. 7, 96–100 (2012).10.1038/nnano.2011.214 ↗
29. Ivchenko, E. & Ganichev, S. in Spin Physics in Semiconductors (ed. Dyakonov, M. I.) Ch. 9 (Springer, 2008).
30. Ganichev, S. D. & Prettl, W. Spin photocurrents in quantum wells. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 15, R935–R983 (2003).10.1088/0953-8984/15/20/204 ↗
31. Shalygin, V., Moldavskaya, M., Danilov, S., Farbshtein, I. & Golub, L. Circular photon drag effect in bulk tellurium. Phys. Rev. B 93, 045207 (2016).10.1103/PhysRevB.93.045207 ↗
32. Karch, J. et al. Terahertz radiation driven chiral edge currents in graphene. Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 276601 (2011).10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.276601 ↗
33. He, X. et al. Anomalous photogalvanic effect of circularly polarized light incident on the two-dimensional electron gas in AlxGa1−xN/GaN heterostructures at room temperature. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 147402 (2008).10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.147402 ↗
34. Sipe, J. & Shkrebtii, A. Second-order optical response in semiconductors. Phys. Rev. B 61, 5337–5352 (2000).10.1103/PhysRevB.61.5337 ↗
35. Sekine, A., Culcer, D. & MacDonald, A. H. Quantum kinetic theory of the chiral anomaly. Phys. Rev. B 96, 235134 (2017).10.1103/PhysRevB.96.235134 ↗
36. Sturman, P. J. Photovoltaic and Photo-refractive Effects in Noncentrosymmetric Materials Vol. 8 (CRC Press, 1992).
37. Wang, Z. et al. Dirac semimetal and topological phase transitions in A 3Bi (A = Na, K, Rb). Phys. Rev. B 85, 195320 (2012).10.1103/PhysRevB.85.195320 ↗
38. Olbrich, P. et al. Room-temperature high-frequency transport of Dirac fermions in epitaxially grown Sb2Te3- and Bi2Te3-based topological insulators. Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 096601 (2014).10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.096601 ↗
39. Hirsch, J. Spin Hall effect. Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 1834–1837 (1999).10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.1834 ↗
40. Rubin, L. & Sample, H. The Hall Effect and Its Applications (Plenum Press, 1980).
41. Deyo, E., Golub, L., Ivchenko, E. & Spivak, B. Semiclassical theory of the photogalvanic effect in non-centrosymmetric systems. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/0904.1917 (2009).
42. Giannozzi, P. et al. QUANTUM ESPRESSO: a modular and open-source software project for quantum simulations of materials. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 21, 395502 (2009).10.1088/0953-8984/21/39/395502 ↗
43. Rappe, A. M., Rabe, K. M., Kaxiras, E. & Joannopoulos, J. Optimized pseudopotentials. Phys. Rev. B 41, 1227–1230 (1990).10.1103/PhysRevB.41.1227 ↗
44. Souza, I., Marzari, N. & Vanderbilt, D. Maximally localized Wannier functions for entangled energy bands. Phys. Rev. B 65, 035109 (2001).10.1103/PhysRevB.65.035109 ↗
45. Mostofi, A. A. et al. wannier90: a tool for obtaining maximally-localised Wannier functions. Comput. Phys. Commun. 178, 685–699 (2008).10.1016/j.cpc.2007.11.016 ↗