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Title: Giant photocurrent in asymmetric Weyl semimetals from the helical magnetic effect

Journal Article · · Physical Review B
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2]
  1. Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States); Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States). RIKEN Research Center
  2. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States). RIKEN Research Center
  3. Univ. of Wurzburg (Germany)

We propose a new type of photoresponse induced in asymmetric Weyl semimetals in an external magnetic field. In usual symmetric Weyl semimetals in a magnetic field, the particles and holes produced by an incident light in different Weyl cones have opposite helicities and hence move in opposite directions, canceling each others's contributions to the photocurrent. However this cancelation does not occur if the Weyl semimetal possesses both a broken particle-hole symmetry and a broken spatial inversion symmetry. We call the resulting generation of photocurrent the helical magnetic effect because it is induced by the helicity imbalance in a magnetic field. We find that due to the large density of states in a magnetic field, the helical magnetic effect induces a remarkable large photocurrent for incident THz frequency light. This suggests a potential application of asymmetric Weyl semimetals for creating THz photosensors.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012704; FG-88ER40388; SC-0017662; AC02-98CH10886
OSTI ID:
1466631
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1461004
Report Number(s):
BNL-207982-2018-JAAM; PRBMDO
Journal Information:
Physical Review B, Vol. 98, Issue 1; ISSN 2469-9950
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 22 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (9)

Optical Response of MoTe2 and WTe2 Weyl Semimetals: Distinguishing between Bulk and Surface Contributions journal January 2020
Optical properties of Weyl semimetals journal December 2018
Circular and magnetoinduced photocurrents in Weyl semimetals journal August 2018
Photonic Weyl points due to broken time-reversal symmetry in magnetized semiconductor text January 2019
Photonic Weyl points due to broken time-reversal symmetry in magnetized semiconductor text January 2019
Optical Properties of Weyl Semimetals journal June 2018
Photonic Weyl points due to broken time-reversal symmetry in magnetized semiconductor journal August 2019
Circular and magnetoinduced photocurrents in Weyl semimetals text January 2018
Chiral Optical Response of Multifold Fermions text January 2018

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