Laser-induced topological transitions in phosphorene with inversion symmetry

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that monolayer phosphorene can undergo topological phase transitions, including semimetallic and quantum Hall phases, when driven by in-plane laser fields, expanding the potential for optoelectronic topological applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to induce and analyze topological phases in monolayer phosphorene using high-frequency laser fields and an inversion-symmetry-based approach.

Findings

Linear polarized fields induce semimetallic Dirac phases.

Elliptic polarized fields can lead to anomalous quantum Hall phases.

Photon-renormalized band structure topology is characterized up to second order in high-frequency limit.

Abstract

Recent ab initio calculations and experiments reported insulating-semimetallic phase transitions in multilayer phosphorene under a perpendicular dc field, pressure or doping, as a possible route to realize topological phases. In this work, we show that even a monolayer phosphorene may undergo Lifshitz transitions toward semimetallic and topological insulating phases, provided it is rapidly driven by in-plane time-periodic laser fields. Based on a four-orbital tight-binding description, we give an inversion-symmetry-based prescription in order to apprehend the topology of the photon-renormalized band structure, up to the second order in the high-frequency limit. Apart from the initial band insulating behavior, two additional phases are thus identified. A semimetallic phase with massless Dirac electrons may be induced by linear polarized fields, whereas elliptic polarized fields are likely to drive the material into an anomalous quantum Hall phase.