Optical injection and terahertz detection of the macroscopic Berry curvature

TL;DR

This paper introduces an optical and terahertz-based experimental method to measure and analyze the Berry curvature in solids, providing a background-free signal and insights into microscopic properties.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach for injecting and probing Berry curvature in solids using simple optical and terahertz techniques, applicable to arbitrary Brillouin zone regions.

Findings

Method effectively probes Berry curvature in semiconductor quantum wells.

Technique yields background-free signals for Berry curvature detection.

Provides a way to connect macroscopic measurements with microscopic Berry curvature.

Abstract

We propose an experimental scheme to probe the Berry curvature of solids. Our method is sensitive to arbitrary regions of the Brillouin zone, and employs only basic optical and terahertz techniques to yield a background free signal. Using semiconductor quantum wells as a prototypical system, we discuss how to inject Berry curvature macroscopically, and probe it in a way that provides information about the underlying microscopic Berry curvature.