Photogalvanic Effects in Heteropolar Nanotubes

Abstract

We show that an electrical shift current is generated when electrons are photoexcited from the valence to conduction bands on a BN nanotube. This photocurrent follows the light pulse envelope and its symmetry is controlled by the atomic structure of the nanotube. We find that the shift current has an intrinsic quantum mechanical signature in which the chiral index of the tube determines the direction of the current along the tube axis. We identify discrete lattice effects in the tangent plane of the tube that lead to an azimuthal component of the shift current. The nanotube shift current can lead to ultrafast opto-electronic and opto-mechanical applications.

4 pages in RevTeX cotaining 2 epsf color figures

References in corpus (3)

• Elastic Properties of C and BxCyNz Composite Nanotubes
• Coherent Control of Photocurrents in Graphene and Carbon Nanotubes
• Quantum kinetic theory of shift current electron pumping in semiconductors

Cited by in corpus (22)

• First principles calculations of the Shift Current Bulk Photovoltaic Effect in Ferroelectrics
• High frequency electric field induced nonlinear effects in graphene (review)
• Design principles for shift current photovoltaics
• Electric Polarization of Heteropolar Nanotubes as a Geometric Phase
• Colloquium: Physical properties of group-IV monochalcogenide monolayers
• Topological Classification of Crystalline Insulators with Point Group Symmetry
• Chirality effects in carbon nanotubes
• Shockley-Ramo theorem and long-range photocurrent response in gapless materials
• Longitudinal Solitons in Carbon Nanotubes
• Spatio-temporal dynamics of shift current quantum pumping by femtosecond light pulse
• Injection current in ferroelectric group-IV monochalcogenide monolayers
• Chiral currents in gold nanotubes
• Large shift current via in-gap and charge-neutral exciton excitations in BN nanotubes and single BN layer
• Oscillating chiral currents in nanotubes: a route to nanoscale magnetic test tubes
• Quantum Kinetics of the Magneto Photo Galvanic Effect
• Tunable bulk photovoltaic effect in strained $\gamma$-GeSe
• Possible charge ordered states in BN and BCN nanotubes, and nanoribbons
• Berry-electrodynamics - Anomalous drift and pumping from time-dependent Berry connection
• Understanding the large shift photocurrent of WS${}_2$ nanotubes: A comparative analysis with monolayers
• Chirality-induced selectivity of angular momentum by orbital Edelstein effect in carbon nanotubes
• Terahertz radiation of jerk photocurrent
• Optical excitations in hexagonal nanonetwork materials