Giant photocurrent in asymmetric Weyl semimetals from the helical magnetic effect

TL;DR

This paper introduces the helical magnetic effect in asymmetric Weyl semimetals, where broken symmetries lead to a large photocurrent under magnetic fields, promising applications in THz photodetection.

Contribution

It reveals a new photocurrent mechanism in asymmetric Weyl semimetals caused by helicity imbalance and magnetic fields, which was not previously known.

Findings

Large photocurrent induced by the helical magnetic effect.

Enhanced photoresponse at THz frequencies.

Potential for THz sensor applications.

Abstract

We propose a new type of photoresponse induced in asymmetric Weyl semimetals in an external magnetic field. In usual symmetric Weyl semimetals in a magnetic field, the particles and holes produced by an incident light in different Weyl cones have opposite helicities and hence move in opposite directions, canceling each others's contributions to the photocurrent. However this cancelation does not occur if the Weyl semimetal possesses both a broken particle-hole symmetry and a broken spatial inversion symmetry. We call the resulting generation of photocurrent the helical magnetic effect because it is induced by the helicity imbalance in a magnetic field. We find that due to the large density of states in a magnetic field, the helical magnetic effect induces a remarkable large photocurrent for incident THz frequency light. This suggests a potential application of asymmetric Weyl semimetals for creating THz photosensors.