Theory of the Inverse Faraday Effect due to the Rashba Spin-Oribt Interactions: Roles of Band Dispersions and Fermi Surfaces

TL;DR

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of the inverse Faraday effect induced by circularly polarized light in systems with Rashba spin-orbit interaction, highlighting the roles of band structure and Fermi surface geometry in spin polarization.

Contribution

The study introduces an analytical Floquet theory explaining the dependence of light-induced spin polarization on electron filling and band dispersions in Rashba systems.

Findings

Spin polarization scales as E_0^2/ω^3 with light parameters.

Magnitude and sign of spin polarization depend on electron filling.

Theoretical framework links Fermi surface geometry to spin response.

Abstract

We theoretically study the inverse Faraday effect, i.e., the optical induction of spin polarization with circularly polarized light, by particularly focusing on effects of band dispersions and Fermi surfaces in crystal systems with the spin-orbit interaction (SOI). By numerically solving the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation of a tight-binding model with the Rashba-type SOI, we reproduce the light-induced spin polarization proportional to $E_0^2/\omega^3$ where $E_0$ and $\omega$ are the electric-field amplitude and the angular frequency of light, respectively. This optical spin induction is attributed to dynamical magnetoelectric coupling between the light electric field and the electron spins mediated by the SOI. We elucidate that the magnitude and sign of the induced spin polarization sensitively depend on the electron filling. To understand these results, we construct an analytical theory based on the Floquet theorem. The theory successfully explains the dependencies on $E_0$ and $\omega$ and ascribes the electron-filling dependence to a momentum-dependent effective magnetic field governed by the Fermi-surface geometry. Several candidate materials and experimental conditions relevant to our theory and model parameters are also discussed. Our findings will enable us to engineer the magneto-optical responses of matters via tuning the material parameters.