Quantized circular photogalvanic effect in Weyl semimetals

Fernando de Juan (), Adolfo G. Grushin, Takahiro Morimoto and Joel E Moore
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Fernando de Juan: University of California
Adolfo G. Grushin: University of California
Takahiro Morimoto: University of California
Joel E Moore: University of California

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract The circular photogalvanic effect (CPGE) is the part of a photocurrent that switches depending on the sense of circular polarization of the incident light. It has been consistently observed in systems without inversion symmetry and depends on non-universal material details. Here we find that in a class of Weyl semimetals (for example, SrSi2) and three-dimensional Rashba materials (for example, doped Te) without inversion and mirror symmetries, the injection contribution to the CPGE trace is effectively quantized in terms of the fundamental constants e, h, c and with no material-dependent parameters. This is so because the CPGE directly measures the topological charge of Weyl points, and non-quantized corrections from disorder and additional bands can be small over a significant range of incident frequencies. Moreover, the magnitude of the CPGE induced by a Weyl node is relatively large, which enables the direct detection of the monopole charge with current techniques.

Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15995

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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15995

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