Transverse chiral magnetic photocurrent induced by linearly polarized light in mirror-symmetric Weyl semimetals

Sahal Kaushik,Dmitri E Kharzeev,Evan John Philip

doi:10.1103/physrevresearch.2.042011

Sahal Kaushik, Dmitri E Kharzeev + Show 1 more

Open Access

PDF Available

https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevresearch.2.042011

Copy DOI

Export

Save

Cite

Abstract
Highlights/Summary
Full-Text PDF
Similar Papers

Abstract

Listen

A new class of photocurrents is predicted to occur in both type-I and type-II Weyl semimetals. Unlike the previously studied photocurrents in chiral materials, the proposed current requires neither circularly polarized light, nor an absence of symmetry with respect to a plane of reflection. We show that if a Weyl semimetal has a broken inversion symmetry then linearly polarized light can induce a photocurrent transverse to the direction of an applied magnetic field, in spite of the symmetry with respect to a reflection plane and the time reversal symmetry. The class of materials in which we expect this to occur is sufficiently broad and includes the transition metal monopnictides such as TaAs. The effect stems from the dynamics of Weyl chiral quasi-particles in a magnetic field, restricted by the symmetries described above; because the resulting current is transverse to the direction of magnetic field, we call it the transverse chiral magnetic photocurrent. The magnitude of the resulting photocurrent is predicted to be significant in the THz frequency range, about $0.75\; \mathrm{\mu A}$ for type-I and $2.5\; \mathrm{\mu A}$ for type-II Weyl semimetals. This opens the possibility to utilize the predicted transverse chiral magnetic photocurrent for sensing unpolarized THz radiation.

Highlights

The hallmark of Dirac and Weyl semimetals is the emergence of chiral fermionic quasiparticles; for a review, see Armitage et al [1]
The chiral quasiparticles enable the study of quantum anomaly induced phenomena, such as the chiral magnetic effect [2], which results in a large negative magnetoresistance [3,4] observed recently in a number of Dirac [5,6] and Weyl [7,8,9,10] semimetals
In Dirac materials, the left- and right-handed fermions are at the same points in the Brillouin zone, while in Weyl materials, they are at different points

Summary

Introduction

The hallmark of Dirac and Weyl semimetals is the emergence of chiral fermionic quasiparticles; for a review, see Armitage et al [1]. A chiral photocurrent has been predicted [12] and observed [13] in the Weyl semimetal TaAs in response to circularly polarized light.

Results

Conclusion