Floquet spin states in graphene under ac driven spin-orbit interaction

Abstract

We study the role of periodically driven time-dependent Rashba spin-orbit coupling (RSOC) on a monolayer graphene sample. After recasting the originally $4\times 4$ system of dynamical equations as two time-reversal related two-level problems, the quasi-energy spectrum and the related dynamics are investigated via various techniques and approximations. In the static case the system is a gapped at the Dirac point. The rotating wave approximation (RWA) applied to the driven system unphysically preserves this feature, while the Magnus-Floquet approach as well as a numerically exact evaluation of the Floquet equation show that this gap is dynamically closed. In addition, a sizable oscillating pattern of the out-of-plane spin polarization is found in the driven case for states which completely unpolarized in the static limit. Evaluation of the autocorrelation function shows that the original uniform interference pattern corresponding to time-independent RSOC gets distorted. The resulting structure can be qualitatively explained as a consequence of the transitions induced by the ac driving among the static eigenstates, i.e., these transitions modulate the relative phases that add up to give the quantum revivals of the autocorrelation function. Contrary to the static case, in the driven scenario, quantum revivals (suppresions) are correlated to spin up (down) phases.

10 pages, 8 figures. Typos corrected. Accepted for publication in PRB

References in corpus (12)

• Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films
• The electronic properties of graphene
• Photovoltaic Hall effect in graphene
• Topological characterization of periodically-driven quantum systems
• The Magnus expansion and some of its applications
• Intrinsic and Rashba Spin-orbit Interactions in Graphene Sheets
• Spin-orbit coupling in curved graphene, fullerenes, nanotubes, and nanotube caps
• Spin-orbit gap of graphene: First-principles calculations
• Tuning laser-induced bandgaps in graphene
• Optical response of graphene under intense terahertz fields
• Revivals of quantum wave-packets in graphene
• Electronic properties of graphene and graphene nanoribbons with "pseudo-Rashba" spin-orbit coupling

Cited by in corpus (27)

• Universal High-Frequency Behavior of Periodically Driven Systems: from Dynamical Stabilization to Floquet Engineering
• Effective Theory of Floquet Topological Transitions
• Interplay between spin-orbit interactions and a time-dependent electromagnetic field in monolayer graphene
• Spin-noise-based magnetometry of an $n$-doped GaAs microcavity in the field of elliptically polarized light
• Driven conductance of an irradiated semi-Dirac material
• Probing Topological signatures in an optically driven $\alpha$-$T_3$ Lattice
• Electron transitions for Dirac Hamiltonians with flat-bands under electromagnetic radiation and its application to the $\alpha -{\mathcal{T}}_3$ graphene model
• Photoinduced interfacial chiral modes in threefold topological semimetal
• Electron spin rotations induced by oscillating Rashba interaction in a quantum wire
• Revival times at quantum phase transitions
• Fano Resonance in the Nonadiabatically Pumped Shot Noise of a Time-Dependent Quantum Well in 2DEG and Graphene
• Generation of Schrödinger's cat states in a planar semiconductor heterostructure
• Generation of spin-dependent coherent states in a quantum wire
• Driven Hofstadter Butterflies and Related Topological Invariants
• Photoinduced spin-Hall resonance in a k^3-Rashba spin-orbit coupled two dimensional hole system
• Graphene with time-dependent spin-orbit coupling: Truncated Magnus expansion approach
• Particle Transport in Graphene Nanoribbon Driven by Ultrashort Pulses
• Floquet topological phases on a honeycomb lattice using elliptically polarized light
• Fano resonance via bonding and antibonding states in nonadiabatically-pumped double-quantum-well systems
• Photoinduced metallic Volkov-Pankratov states in semi-Dirac material
• Floquet analysis of time-averaged trapping potentials
• Oscillating spin-orbit interaction as a source of spin-polarized wave packets in two-terminal nanoscale devices
• Controlling spin without magnetic fields -- the Bloch-Rashba rotator
• Topological Properties of Bilayer $\alpha -T_3$ Lattice Induced by Polarized Light
• All-electric single electron spin-to-charge conversion
• Volkov-Pankratov states in a driven semimetal for a generic interface
• Dynamical Spin-Orbit-Based Spin Transistor