Photocurrents in Weyl semimetals

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that three-dimensional Weyl semimetals can generate significant photocurrents due to symmetry breaking and tilts, making them promising for infrared detection at room temperature.

Contribution

It reveals that Weyl semimetals can support photocurrents unlike 2D Dirac systems, highlighting the role of inversion symmetry breaking and spectral tilts.

Findings

Weyl semimetals support photocurrents due to symmetry properties.

Photocurrent generation depends on system and light source parameters.

Potential application in room-temperature infrared detection.

Abstract

The generation of photocurrent in an ideal two-dimensional Dirac spectrum is symmetry-forbidden. In sharp contrast, we show that three-dimensional Weyl semimetals can generically support significant photocurrent generations due to the combination of inversion symmetry breaking and finite tilts of the Weyl spectra. Symmetry properties, chirality relations and various dependences on the system and light sources are explored in details. Our results suggest that noncentrosymmetric Weyl materials can be advantageously applied to room temperature detections of mid- and far-infrared radiations.