Tunable room temperature nonlinear Hall effect from the surfaces of elementary bismuth thin films

Abstract

The nonlinear Hall effect (NLHE) with time-reversal symmetry constitutes the appearance of a transverse voltage quadratic in the applied electric field. It is a second-order electronic transport phenomenon that induces frequency doubling and occurs in non-centrosymmetric crystals with large Berry curvature -- an emergent magnetic field encoding the geometric properties of electronic wavefunctions. The design of (opto)electronic devices based on the NLHE is however hindered by the fact that this nonlinear effect typically appears at low temperatures and in complex compounds characterized by Dirac or Weyl electrons. Here, we show a strong room temperature NLHE in the centrosymmetric elemental material bismuth synthesized in the form of technologically relevant polycrystalline thin films. The ($111$) surface electrons of this material are equipped with a Berry curvature triple that activates side jumps and skew scatterings generating nonlinear transverse currents. We also report a boost of the zero field nonlinear transverse voltage in arc-shaped bismuth stripes due to an extrinsic geometric classical counterpart of the NLHE. This electrical frequency doubling in curved geometries is then extended to optical second harmonic generation in the terahertz (THz) spectral range. The strong nonlinear electrodynamical responses of the surface states are further demonstrated by a concomitant highly efficient THz third harmonic generation which we achieve in a broad range of frequencies in Bi and Bi-based heterostructures. Combined with the possibility of growth on CMOS-compatible and mechanically flexible substrates, these results highlight the potential of Bi thin films for THz (opto)electronic applications.

44 pages, 21 figures

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• Engineering nonlinear Hall effect in bilayer graphene/black phosphorus heterostructures
• Observation of Temperature Independent Anomalous Hall Effect in Thin Bismuth from Near Absolute Zero to 300 K Temperature
• Nonlinear planar magnetotransport as a probe of the topology of surface states
• Room temperature quantum metric effect in TbMn6Sn6
• Hallmarks of spin textures for high-harmonic generation in two-dimensional materials
• Band Geometry Induced Third-Harmonic Generation
• Prediction of a layer nonlinear Hall effect in bilayer nonmagnetic or antiferromagnetic systems
• Ferroelectric-tunable quantum nonlinearity of chiral Bloch electrons in a moiré system
• Nonlinear hydrodynamic response of a quantum Hall system
• Identifying geometric third-order nonlinear transport in disordered materials