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Title: Intrinsic Fermi-surface contribution to the bulk photovoltaic effect

Abstract

We study the Fermi surface contribution to the nonlinear DC photocurrent at quadratic order in a spatially uniform optical field in the ultra-clean limit. In addition to shift and injection current,we find that polarized light incident on a metallic system generates an intrinsic contribution to the bulk photovoltaic effect deriving from photoinduced electronic transitions on the Fermi surface. In velocity gauge, this contribution originates in both the coherent band off-diagonal and diagonal parts of the density matrix, describing respectively, the coherent wave function evolution and the carrier dynamics of an excited population. We derive a formula for the intrinsic Fermi surface contribution for a time-reversal invariant chiral Weyl semimetal illuminated with circularly-polarized light. At low frequency, this response is proportional to the frequency of the driving field, with its sign determined by the topological charge of the Weyl nodes and with its magnitude being comparable to the recently discovered quantized circular photogalvanic effect. Our work presents a complete derivation for all contributions to nonlinear DC photocurrent and classify them according to the polarization of light in the presence and absence of TRS.

Authors:
ORCiD logo; ORCiD logo; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
OSTI Identifier:
1832920
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1832885
Grant/Contract Number:  
FG02-07ER46431; FG02-84ER45118
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
Physical Review Research
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Physical Review Research Journal Volume: 3 Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 2643-1564
Publisher:
American Physical Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; Photovoltaic effect; Weyl semimetal; circular photogalvanic effect; photoconductivity; photogalvanic effect

Citation Formats

Gao, Lingyuan, Addison, Zachariah, Mele, E. J., and Rappe, Andrew M. Intrinsic Fermi-surface contribution to the bulk photovoltaic effect. United States: N. p., 2021. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L042032.
Gao, Lingyuan, Addison, Zachariah, Mele, E. J., & Rappe, Andrew M. Intrinsic Fermi-surface contribution to the bulk photovoltaic effect. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L042032
Gao, Lingyuan, Addison, Zachariah, Mele, E. J., and Rappe, Andrew M. Mon . "Intrinsic Fermi-surface contribution to the bulk photovoltaic effect". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L042032.
@article{osti_1832920,
title = {Intrinsic Fermi-surface contribution to the bulk photovoltaic effect},
author = {Gao, Lingyuan and Addison, Zachariah and Mele, E. J. and Rappe, Andrew M.},
abstractNote = {We study the Fermi surface contribution to the nonlinear DC photocurrent at quadratic order in a spatially uniform optical field in the ultra-clean limit. In addition to shift and injection current,we find that polarized light incident on a metallic system generates an intrinsic contribution to the bulk photovoltaic effect deriving from photoinduced electronic transitions on the Fermi surface. In velocity gauge, this contribution originates in both the coherent band off-diagonal and diagonal parts of the density matrix, describing respectively, the coherent wave function evolution and the carrier dynamics of an excited population. We derive a formula for the intrinsic Fermi surface contribution for a time-reversal invariant chiral Weyl semimetal illuminated with circularly-polarized light. At low frequency, this response is proportional to the frequency of the driving field, with its sign determined by the topological charge of the Weyl nodes and with its magnitude being comparable to the recently discovered quantized circular photogalvanic effect. Our work presents a complete derivation for all contributions to nonlinear DC photocurrent and classify them according to the polarization of light in the presence and absence of TRS.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L042032},
journal = {Physical Review Research},
number = 4,
volume = 3,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Nov 29 00:00:00 EST 2021},
month = {Mon Nov 29 00:00:00 EST 2021}
}

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