Symmetry manipulation of nonlinear optical effect for metallic transition-metal dichalcogenides

Abstract

Nonlinear optical (NLO) effect plays a crucial role to engineer optical angular frequency and symmetry of electronic system. Metallic transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) is one of two-dimensional (2D) materials, which has no inversion symmetry for odd-number-layer. In particular, odd-number-layered NbSe$_2$ has spin splitting owing to Ising-type spin-orbit coupling. In this paper, we numerically calculate the NLO charge and spin conductivities of NbSe$_2$ based on an effective tight-binding model for several different optical effects, i.e., symmetry manipulation by bi-circular light (BCL) and bulk photovoltaic effect (shift and injection current). Under irradiation of BCL which can control the symmetry of electronic system, the current can be generated even in even-number-layered NbSe$_2$. Also, we find that shift current can be generated for odd-number-layered NbSe$_2$, which is robust against electronic scattering, i.e., topological current. The direction of generated shift current can be switched by altering polarization of light. Our results will serve to design opt-spintronics devices based on 2D materials to manipulate the charge and spin current and their directions by controlling the polarization of incident light which recasts the symmetry of electronic system.