Spatially dispersive circular photogalvanic effect in a Weyl semimetal

Abstract

Weyl semimetals are gapless topological states of matter with broken inversion and/or time reversal symmetry, which can support unconventional responses to externally applied electrical, optical and magnetic fields. Here we report a new photogalvanic effect in type-II WSMs, MoTe2 and Mo0.9W0.1Te2, which are observed to support a circulating photocurrent when illuminated by circularly polarized light at normal incidence. This effect occurs exclusively in the inversion broken phase, where crucially we find that it is associated with a spatially varying beam profile via a new dispersive contribution to the circular photogalvanic effect (s-CPGE). The response functions derived for s-CPGE reveal the microscopic mechanism of this photocurrent, which are controlled by terms that are allowed in the absence of inversion symmetry, along with asymmetric carrier excitation and relaxation. By evaluating this response for a minimal model of a Weyl semimetal, we obtain the frequency dependent scaling behavior of this form of photocurrent. These results demonstrate opportunities for controlling photoresponse by patterning optical fields to store, manipulate and transmit information over a wide spectral range.

References in corpus (33)

• Quantum ESPRESSO: a modular and open-source software project for quantum simulations of materials
• Topological Insulators
• Topological insulators and superconductors
• $Z_2$ Topological Order and the Quantum Spin Hall Effect
• Electronic Structure of Pyrochlore Iridates: From Topological Dirac Metal to Mott Insulator
• Weyl and Dirac Semimetals in Three Dimensional Solids
• Wannier90: A Tool for Obtaining Maximally-Localised Wannier Functions
• Spin Hall effect
• Type-II Weyl Semimetals
• Weyl Semimetal in a Topological Insulator Multilayer
• Maximally-localized Wannier functions for entangled energy bands
• Dirac semimetal and topological phase transitions in A3Bi (A=Na, K, Rb)
• Topological response in Weyl semimetals and the chiral anomaly
• Experimental observation of topological Fermi arcs in type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe2
• Recent developments in transport phenomena in Weyl semimetals
• Quantized circular photogalvanic effect in Weyl semimetals
• Control over topological insulator photocurrents with light polarization
• Quantum Oscillations from Surface Fermi-Arcs in Weyl and Dirac Semi-Metals
• Spectroscopic evidence for type II Weyl semimetal state in MoTe2
• Giant anisotropic nonlinear optical response in transition metal monopnictide Weyl semimetals
• MoTe2: A Type-II Weyl Topological Metal
• Direct optical detection of Weyl fermion chirality in a topological semimetal
• Photocurrents in Weyl semimetals
• Arc-tunable Weyl Fermion metallic state in Mo${}_x$W${}_{1-x}$Te${}_2$
• The Berry curvature dipole in Weyl semimetal materials: an ab initio study
• Semiclassical theory of nonlinear magneto-optical responses with applications to topological Dirac/Weyl semimetals
• Discovery of a new type of topological Weyl fermion semimetal state in Mo${}_x$W${}_{1-x}$Te${}_2$
• Raman signatures of inversion symmetry breaking and structural phase transition in type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe2
• Room temperature high frequency transport of Dirac fermions in epitaxially grown Sb_2Te_3 based topological insulators
• Terahertz radiation driven chiral edge currents in graphene
• Photogalvanic effect in Weyl semimetals
• Quantum Kinetic Theory of the Chiral Anomaly
• Circular photon drag effect in bulk tellurium

Cited by in corpus (34)

• Observation of Topological Photocurrents in the Chiral Weyl Semimetal RhSi
• Topological Materials Discovery from Crystal Symmetry
• Topology and geometry under the nonlinear electromagnetic spotlight
• Light control with Weyl semimetals
• Optical detection and manipulation of spontaneous gyrotropic electronic order in a transition-metal dichalcogenide semimetal
• Twofold quadruple Weyl nodes in chiral cubic crystals
• Difference frequency generation in topological semimetals
• Linear and nonlinear optical responses in the chiral multifold semimetal RhSi
• Structural Phase Transition and Interlayer Coupling in Few-Layer 1T' and Td MoTe2
• Optical signatures of multifold fermions in the chiral topological semimetal CoSi
• Colossal switchable photocurrents in topological Janus transition metal dichalcogenides
• Spin photogalvanic effect in two-dimensional collinear antiferromagnets
• Shift current response in elemental two-dimensional ferroelectrics
• Acoustogalvanic effect in Dirac and Weyl semimetals
• Rabi Regime of Current Rectification in Solids
• Electronic structure and unconventional non-linear response in double Weyl semimetal SrSi${}_2$
• Visualizing bulk and edge photocurrent flow in anisotropic Weyl semimetals
• Highly superlinear photogalvanic effects in (Bi${}_{0.3}$Sb${}_{0.7}$)${}_2$(Te${}_{0.1}$Se${}_{0.9}$)${}_3$: Probing 3D topological insulator surface states at room temperature
• Supercurrent induced resonant optical response
• Anomalous Phonon-mode Dependence in Polarized Raman Spectroscopy of Topological Weyl Semimetal TaP
• Photocurrents in bulk tellurium
• Distinct signatures of particle-hole symmetry breaking in transport coefficients for generic multi-Weyl semimetals
• Acousto-drag photovoltaic effect by piezoelectric integration of two-dimensional semiconductors
• Circular photogalvanic effect in 2D van der Waals heterostructure
• Helicity-dependent Ultrafast Photocurrents in Weyl Magnet Mn${}_3$Sn
• Magnetic field induces giant nonlinear optical response in Weyl semimetals
• Optically induced symmetry breaking due to nonequilibrium steady state formation in charge density wave material 1T-TiSe2
• Twisted nonlinear optics in monolayer van der Waals crystals
• Broadband photoresponse enhancement by band engineering in Sb-doped MnBi2Te4
• Direct Photocurrent Detection of Optical Vortex Based on the Orbital Photo Galvanic Effect: Progress, Challenge and Perspective
• Coherence Control of Directional Nonlinear Photocurrent in Spatially Symmetric Systems
• Nonlinear Time Domain Spectroscopy Near a Band Inversion
• Enhanced detection of circularly polarized photons with topological materials
• Nonlinear response functions and disorder: the case of photogalvanic effect