Low-frequency divergence and quantum geometry of the bulk photovoltaic effect in topological semimetals

TL;DR

This paper investigates the low-frequency behavior of the bulk photovoltaic effect in topological semimetals, revealing divergent conductivities and their quantum geometric origins, with implications for terahertz photodetectors.

Contribution

It provides a systematic analysis of the low-frequency divergence in optical conductivity and links the nonlinear optical response to quantum geometric quantities in topological semimetals.

Findings

Dirac and Weyl points show divergent low-frequency conductivity behaviors.

Injection current is governed by quantum metric and Berry curvature.

First-principles calculations validate the theoretical predictions.

Abstract

We study the low-frequency properties of the bulk photovoltaic effect in topological semimetals. The bulk photovoltaic effect is a nonlinear optical effect that generates DC photocurrents under uniform irradiation, allowed by noncentrosymmetry. It is a promising mechanism for a terahertz photodetection based on topological semimetals. Here, we systematically investigate the low-frequency behavior of the second-order optical conductivity in point-node semimetals. Through symmetry and power-counting analysis, we show that Dirac and Weyl points with tilted cones show the leading low-frequency divergence. In particular, we find new divergent behaviors of the conductivity of Dirac and Weyl points under circularly polarized light, where the conductivity scales as $\omega^{-2}$ and $\omega^{-1}$ near the gap-closing point in two and three dimensions, respectively. We provide a further perspective on the low-frequency bulk photovoltaic effect by revealing the complete quantum geometric meaning of the second-order optical conductivity tensor. The bulk photovoltaic effect has two origins, which are the transition of electron position and the transition of electron velocity during the optical excitation, and the resulting photocurrents are respectively called the shift current and the injection current. Based on an analysis of two-band models, we show that the injection current is controlled by the quantum metric and Berry curvature, whereas the shift current is governed by the Christoffel symbols near the gap-closing points in semimetals. Finally, for further demonstrations of our theory beyond simple two-band models, we perform first-principles calculations on magnetic Dirac semimetal MnGeO$_3$and Weyl semimetal PrGeAl. Our work brings out new insights into the structure of nonlinear optical responses as well as for the design of semimetal-based terahertz photodetectors.