Abstract
The acoustogalvanic effect is proposed as a nonlinear mechanism to generate a direct electric current by passing acoustic waves in Dirac and Weyl semimetals. Unlike the standard acoustoelectric effect, which relies on the sound-induced deformation potential and the corresponding electric field, the acoustogalvanic one originates from the pseudoelectromagnetic fields, which are not subject to screening. The longitudinal acoustogalvanic current scales at least quadratically with the relaxation time, which is in contrast to the photogalvanic current where the scaling is linear. Because of the interplay of pseudoelectric and pseudomagnetic fields, the current could show a nontrivial dependence on the direction of sound wave propagation. Being within the experimental reach, the effect can be utilized to probe dynamical deformations and corresponding pseudoelectromagnetic fields, which are yet to be experimentally observed in Weyl and Dirac semimetals.
Highlights
Introduction.—The investigation of interplay between electric properties and sound waves has a long history and dates back to 1950s [1,2,3,4,5]
We mention the pseudogauge field in carbon nanotubes [14], graphene [15,16,17,18], bilayer graphene [19,20], and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) [21,22]
Dirac semimetals (DSMs) and Weyl semimetals (WSMs) represent a special class of solids with relativisticlike quasiparticles [32,33,34,35]
Summary
The acoustogalvanic effect is proposed as a nonlinear mechanism to generate a direct electric current by passing acoustic waves in Dirac and Weyl semimetals. Unlike the standard acoustoelectric effect, which relies on the sound-induced deformation potential and the corresponding electric field, the acoustogalvanic one originates from the pseudoelectromagnetic fields, which are not subject to screening. Being within the experimental reach, the effect can be utilized to probe dynamical deformations and corresponding pseudoelectromagnetic fields, which are yet to be experimentally observed in Weyl and Dirac semimetals. Note that the appearance of strain-induced gauge fields is intimately connected with the fact that quasiparticles in Dirac and Weyl systems are described by the corresponding relativisticlike equations. If the time-reversal (T ) symmetry is broken, each Dirac point splits into two Weyl nodes of opposite chiralities
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