Theory of the optical absorption of light carrying orbital angular momentum by semiconductors

Abstract

We develop a free-carrier theory of the optical absorption of light carrying orbital angular momentum (twisted light) by bulk semiconductors. We obtain the optical transition matrix elements for Bessel-mode twisted light and use them to calculate the wave function of photo-excited electrons to first-order in the vector potential of the laser. The associated net electric currents of first and second-order on the field are obtained. It is shown that the magnetic field produced at the center of the beam for the $\ell =1$ mode is of the order of a millitesla, and could therefore be detected experimentally using, for example, the technique of time-resolved Faraday rotation.

Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. (23 Jan 2008)

References in corpus (4)

• Optical alignment and spinning of laser-trapped microscopic particles
• Quantized Rotation of Atoms From Photons with Orbital Angular Momentum
• Rotational Effects of Twisted Light on Atoms Beyond the Paraxial Approximation
• Entanglement of internal and external angular momenta of a single atom

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Light control with Weyl semimetals
• Reading the orbital angular momentum of light using plasmonic nanoantennas
• Formulation of the twisted-light--matter interaction at the phase singularity: the twisted-light gauge
• Inverse Faraday Effect for Superconducting Condensates
• Light-hole transitions in quantum dots: realizing full control by highly focused optical-vortex beams
• Interaction of OAM light with Rydberg excitons: Modifying dipole selection rules
• Excitation of E1-forbidden Atomic Transitions with Electric, Magnetic or Mixed Multipolarity in Light Fields Carrying Orbital and Spin Angular Momentum
• Twisted-light-induced optical transitions in semiconductors: Free-carrier quantum kinetics
• Generalized excitation of atomic multipole transitions by twisted light modes
• Formulation of the twisted-light--matter interaction at the phase singularity: beams with strong magnetic fields
• Photoexcitation of graphene with twisted light
• Twisted-light-induced intersubband transitions in quantum wells at normal incidence
• Two-dimensional excitons from twisted light and the fate of the photon's orbital angular momentum
• Insensitivity of spin dynamics to the orbital angular momentum transferred from twisted light to extended semiconductors
• Spin Polarization of Photoelectrons in GaAs Excited by Twisted Photons