Coherent control of optical injection of spin and currents in topological insulators

Abstract

Topological insulators have surface states with a remarkable helical spin structure, with promising prospects for applications in spintronics. Strategies for generating spin polarized currents, such as the use of magnetic contacts and photoinjection, have been the focus of extensive research. While several optical methods for injecting currents have been explored, they have all focused on one-photon absorption. Here we consider the use of both a fundamental optical field and its second harmonic, which allows the injection of spin polarized carriers and current by a nonlinear process involving quantum interference between one- and two-photon absorption. General expressions are derived for the injection rates in a generic two-band system, including those for one- and two-photon absorption processes as well as their interference. Results are given for carrier, spin density and current injection rates on the surface of topological insulators, for both linearly and circularly polarized light. We identify the conditions that would be necessary for experimentally verifying these predictions.

10 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Superconducting proximity effect and Majorana fermions at the surface of a topological insulator
• Topological Field Theory of Time-Reversal Invariant Insulators
• Ultrafast Optical Excitation of a Persistent Surface-State Population in the Topological Insulator Bi2Se3
• Nonlinear optical probe of tunable surface electrons on a topological insulator
• Spin-transfer torque and spin-polarization in topological-insulator/ferromagnet vertical heterostructures
• Current injection by coherent one- and two-photon excitation in graphene and its bilayer
• Ultrafast extrinsic spin-Hall currents

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• Photogalvanic effect in HgTe/CdTe topological insulator due to edge-bulk optical transitions
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• Photocurrents in Bi2Se3: bulk versus surface, and injection versus shift currents
• Quantum Interference Control of Photocurrents in Semiconductors by Nonlinear Optical Absorption Processes
• Quantum Interference Control of Carriers and Currents in Zincblende Semiconductors based on Nonlinear Absorption Processes
• Quantum Interference Control of Localized Carrier Distributions in the Brillouin Zone
• Coherent control of current injection in zigzag graphene nanoribbons
• Interference of stimulated electronic Raman scattering and linear absorption in coherent control
• Ultrafast dynamics of photocurrents in surface states of 3D topological insulators
• Optical Coherent Injection of Carrier and Current in Twisted Bilayer graphene
• Controllable photocurrent generation in Dirac systems with two frequency drives
• An effective model for the electronic and optical properties of stanene
• Two-color laser control of photocurrent and high harmonics in graphene
• Controlled Polar Asymmetry of Few-Cycle and Intense Mid-Infrared Pulses
• Chiral anomaly in Weyl semimetals from spin current injection
• Topological Optical Pseudospin Injection Beyond Weyl Semimetals