Photogalvanic effect and second harmonic generation from radio to infrared region in WTe$_2$ monolayer

TL;DR

This paper investigates the second-order nonlinear optical responses, including PGE and SHG, in WTe2 monolayer across radio to infrared frequencies, highlighting the effects of Fermi level, electric fields, and scattering on these phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum kinetic approach to analyze nonlinear optical responses in WTe2, emphasizing the importance of scattering effects and providing phenomenological expressions.

Findings

Maximum nonlinear Hall effect frequency is about 1 THz.

Large peaks in nonlinear conductivities occur at Fermi levels matching gap energies.

Circularly polarized light can induce DC current without second harmonic disturbance.

Abstract

Second-order nonlinear optical responses, including photogalvanic effect (PGE) and second harmonic generation (SHG), are important physical phenomena in nonlinear optics. The PGE (SHG) related to linearly and circularly polarized light are called the linear and circular PGE (LPGE and CPGE) [linear and circular SHG (LSHG and CSHG)], respectively. In this work, we use the quantum kinetics under relaxation time approximation to study the dependence of second-order nonlinear optical responses on Fermi level and frequency under different out-of-plane electric fields in WTe$_2$ monolayer from radio to infrared region. We find that the maximum frequency at which the Berry curvature dipole mechanism for the nonlinear Hall effect plays a major role is about 1 THz. In radio and microwave regions, two large peaks of nonlinear conductivities occur when the Fermi level is equal to the energy corresponding to gap-opening points. In terms of frequency, in radio region, LPGE and SHG conductivities maintain a large constant while the CPGE conductivity disappears. In microwave region, LPGE and SHG start to decrease with increasing frequency while the CPGE is large. In 125-300 THz region and in y direction, the presence of DC current without the disturbance of second harmonic current under circularly polarized light may be useful for fabricating new optoelectronic devices. Moreover, we illustrate that when calculating the nonlinear optical responses of practical materials, the theories in the clean limit fail and it is necessary to use a theory that considers scattering effects. We also point out that for materials with femtosecond-scale relaxation times and complex energy band structures, the quantum kinetics is more accurate than the semi-classical Boltzmann equation method. Besides, phenomenological expressions of PGE and SHG are provided.