Berry curvature, spin Hall effect and nonlinear optical response in moir\'e transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers

TL;DR

This paper explores how Berry curvature effects in moiré TMD heterobilayers lead to phenomena like the spin Hall effect and nonlinear optical responses, revealing new quantum behaviors in these materials.

Contribution

It demonstrates that remote conduction bands induce a periodic pseudo-magnetic field causing Berry curvature flux, which explains the observed spin Hall effect and nonlinear optical responses.

Findings

Periodic pseudo-magnetic field induces Berry curvature flux.

Berry curvature distribution can be probed via shift currents.

Spin Hall effect observed due to Berry curvature and spin-valley locking.

Abstract

Recently, the topological flat bands and spin Hall effect have been experimentally observed in the AB-stacked MoTe$_2$/WSe$_2$ heterostructures. In this work, we systematically study the Berry curvature effects in moir\'{e} transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) heterobilayers. We point out that the moir\'{e} potential of the remote conduction bands would induce a sizable periodic pseudo-magnetic field (PMF) on the valence band. This periodic PMF creates net Berry curvature flux in each valley of the moir\'{e} Brillouin zone. The combination of the effect of the Berry curvature and the spin-valley locking can induce the spin Hall effect being observed in the experiment. Interestingly, the valley-contrasting Berry curvature distribution generated by the PMF can be probed through shift currents, which are DC currents induced by linearly polarized lights through nonlinear responses. Our work shed lights on the novel quantum phenomena induced by Berry curvatures in moir\'e TMD heterobilayers.