Tunable chirality and circular dichroism of a topological insulator with C2v symmetry as a function of Rashba and Dresselhaus parameters

Abstract

Polarization-sensitive devices rely on meta-materials to exhibit varying degrees of absorption of light of a given handedness. The chiral surface states of a topological insulator selectively absorb right- and left-circularly polarized light in the vicinity of the Dirac cone reaching its maximum of unity at the Γ point. In this letter, we show that a band gap open topological insulator with C2v symmetry, which is represented through a combination of Rashba and Dresselhaus Hamiltonians, alters the preferential absorption of left- and right-circularly polarized light allowing a smooth variation of the circular dichroism. This variation in circular dichroism, in a range of positive and negative values, is shown to be a function of the Rashba and Dresselhaus coupling parameters.