Photo-induced superconductivity in semiconductors

Abstract

We show that optically pumped semiconductors can exhibit superconductivity. We illustrate this phenomenon in the case of a two-band semiconductor tunnel-coupled to broad-band reservoirs and driven by a continuous wave laser. More realistically, we also show that superconductivity can be induced in a two-band semiconductor interacting with a broad-spectrum light source. We furthermore discuss the case of a three-band model in which the middle band replaces the broad-band reservoirs as the source of dissipation. In all three cases, we derive the simple conditions on the band structure, electron-electron interaction, and hybridization to the reservoirs that enable superconductivity. We compute the finite superconducting gap and argue that the mechanism can be induced through both attractive and repulsive interactions and is robust to high temperatures.

14 pages, 7 figures

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Floquet systems coupled to particle reservoirs
• How statistical forces depend on thermodynamics and kinetics of driven media
• Keldysh approach to periodically driven systems with a fermionic bath: non-equilibrium steady state, proximity effect and dissipation
• Feasible model for photo-induced interband pairing