Unconventional Photocurrents from Surface Fermi Arcs in Topological Chiral Semimetals
Abstract
The nonlinear optical responses from topological semimetals are crucial in both understanding the fundamental properties of quantum materials and designing next-generation light sensors or solar cells. However, previous work focused on the optical effects from bulk states only, disregarding the responses from topological surface states. Here, we propose a new surface-only photocurrent response from chiral Fermi arcs. Using the ideal topological chiral semimetal RhSi as a representative, we quantitatively compute the photogalvanic currents from Fermi arcs on different surfaces. By rigorous crystal symmetry analysis, we demonstrate that Fermi arc photogalvanic currents can be perpendicular to the bulk injection currents regardless of the choice of materials surface. We then generalize this finding to other cubic chiral space groups and predict material candidates. Our theory reveals a powerful notion where common crystalline symmetry can be used to completely disentangle bulk and surface optical responses in many conducting material families.
- Authors:
-
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Physics
- Univ. of Zurich (Switzerland). Dept. of Physics
- National Sun Yat-Sen Univ., Kaohsiung (Taiwan). Dept. of Physics
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Physics; Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
- Academia Sinica, Taipei (Taiwan). Inst. of Physics
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Physics; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Materials Sciences Division
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan (MOST); European Research Council (ERC); National Science Foundation (NSF)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1638203
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; MOST108-2112-M110-013-MY3; FG-02-05ER46200; MOST109-2112-M-001-014-MY3; ERC-StG-Neupert-757867-PARATOP; DGE-1656466
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 124; Journal Issue: 16; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; Fermi surface; topological phases of matter; semimetals; angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy
Citation Formats
Chang, Guoqing, Yin, Jia-Xin, Neupert, Titus, Sanchez, Daniel S., Belopolski, Ilya, Zhang, Songtian S., Cochran, Tyler A., Chéng, Zǐjiā, Hsu, Ming-Chien, Huang, Shin-Ming, Lian, Biao, Xu, Su-Yang, Lin, Hsin, and Hasan, M. Zahid. Unconventional Photocurrents from Surface Fermi Arcs in Topological Chiral Semimetals. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.124.166404.
Chang, Guoqing, Yin, Jia-Xin, Neupert, Titus, Sanchez, Daniel S., Belopolski, Ilya, Zhang, Songtian S., Cochran, Tyler A., Chéng, Zǐjiā, Hsu, Ming-Chien, Huang, Shin-Ming, Lian, Biao, Xu, Su-Yang, Lin, Hsin, & Hasan, M. Zahid. Unconventional Photocurrents from Surface Fermi Arcs in Topological Chiral Semimetals. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.124.166404
Chang, Guoqing, Yin, Jia-Xin, Neupert, Titus, Sanchez, Daniel S., Belopolski, Ilya, Zhang, Songtian S., Cochran, Tyler A., Chéng, Zǐjiā, Hsu, Ming-Chien, Huang, Shin-Ming, Lian, Biao, Xu, Su-Yang, Lin, Hsin, and Hasan, M. Zahid. Fri .
"Unconventional Photocurrents from Surface Fermi Arcs in Topological Chiral Semimetals". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.124.166404. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1638203.
@article{osti_1638203,
title = {Unconventional Photocurrents from Surface Fermi Arcs in Topological Chiral Semimetals},
author = {Chang, Guoqing and Yin, Jia-Xin and Neupert, Titus and Sanchez, Daniel S. and Belopolski, Ilya and Zhang, Songtian S. and Cochran, Tyler A. and Chéng, Zǐjiā and Hsu, Ming-Chien and Huang, Shin-Ming and Lian, Biao and Xu, Su-Yang and Lin, Hsin and Hasan, M. Zahid},
abstractNote = {The nonlinear optical responses from topological semimetals are crucial in both understanding the fundamental properties of quantum materials and designing next-generation light sensors or solar cells. However, previous work focused on the optical effects from bulk states only, disregarding the responses from topological surface states. Here, we propose a new surface-only photocurrent response from chiral Fermi arcs. Using the ideal topological chiral semimetal RhSi as a representative, we quantitatively compute the photogalvanic currents from Fermi arcs on different surfaces. By rigorous crystal symmetry analysis, we demonstrate that Fermi arc photogalvanic currents can be perpendicular to the bulk injection currents regardless of the choice of materials surface. We then generalize this finding to other cubic chiral space groups and predict material candidates. Our theory reveals a powerful notion where common crystalline symmetry can be used to completely disentangle bulk and surface optical responses in many conducting material families.},
doi = {10.1103/physrevlett.124.166404},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
number = 16,
volume = 124,
place = {United States},
year = {2020},
month = {4}
}
Web of Science
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