Photon-drag photovoltaic effects and quantum geometric nature
arXiv:2502.21002 · doi:10.1073/pnas.2424294122
Abstract
The bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE) generates a direct current photocurrent under uniform irradiation and is a nonlinear optical effect traditionally studied in non-centrosymmetric materials. The two main origins of BPVE are the shift and injection currents, arising from transitions in electron position and electron velocity during optical excitation, respectively. Recently, it was proposed that photon-drag effects could unlock BPVE in centrosymmetric materials. However, experimental progress remains limited. In this work, we provide a comprehensive theoretical analysis of photon-drag effects inducing BPVE (photon-drag BPVE). Notably, we find that photon-drag BPVE can be directly linked to quantum geometric tensors. Additionally, we propose that photon-drag shift currents can be fully isolated from other current contributions in non-magnetic centrosymmetric materials. We apply our theory explicitly to the 2D topological insulator -WTe. Furthermore, we investigate photon-drag BPVE in a centrosymmetric magnetic Weyl semimetal, where we demonstrate that linearly polarized light generates photon-drag shift currents.
arXiv comment7 pages, 3 figures, plus Supplementary Material
References in corpus (29)
- Weyl and Dirac Semimetals in Three Dimensional Solids
- Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Field Effect Transistor in Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides
- Topological Crystalline Insulators in the SnTe Material Class
- Magnetoelectric polarizability and axion electrodynamics in crystalline insulators
- Realization of Quantum Spin Hall State in Monolayer 1T'-WTe2
- Observation of the Quantum Spin Hall Effect up to 100 Kelvin in a Monolayer Crystal
- Observation of the nonlinear Hall effect under time reversal symmetric conditions
- Quantized circular photogalvanic effect in Weyl semimetals
- Control over topological insulator photocurrents with light polarization
- First principles calculations of the Shift Current Bulk Photovoltaic Effect in Ferroelectrics
- Edge conduction in monolayer WTe2
- Topological nature of nonlinear optical effects in solids
- Giant anisotropic nonlinear optical response in transition metal monopnictide Weyl semimetals
- Design principles for shift current photovoltaics
- Photocurrents in Weyl semimetals
- Berry Curvature Enhanced Nonlinear Photogalvanic Response of Type-II Weyl Cone
- The Insulating State of Matter: A Geometrical Theory
- Topology and geometry under the nonlinear electromagnetic spotlight
- Consequences of Time-reversal-symmetry Breaking in the Light-Matter Interaction: Berry Curvature, Quantum Metric and Diabatic Motion
- Photocurrent as a multi-physics diagnostic of quantum materials
- Helicity-dependent photocurrents in graphene layers excited by mid-infrared radiation of a CO-laser
- Difference frequency generation in topological semimetals
- Photogalvanic probing of helical edge channels in 2D HgTe topological insulators
- Geometric photon-drag effect and nonlinear shift current in centrosymmetric crystals
- Spin-orbit-parity coupled superconductivity in topological monolayer WTe
- Intrinsic Fermi Surface Contribution to the Bulk Photovoltaic Effect
- Polariton-drag enabled quantum geometric photocurrents in high symmetry materials
- Time-reversal invariant finite-size topology
- Robust quantisation of circular photogalvanic effect in multiplicative topological semimetals