Laser induced surface magnetization in Floquet-Weyl semimetals

TL;DR

This paper theoretically explores how circularly polarized laser irradiation induces surface magnetization in Floquet-Weyl semimetals derived from a nonmagnetic semiconductor, revealing spin-polarized surface states and their dependence on laser parameters.

Contribution

It demonstrates the generation of spin-polarized surface states and surface magnetization in Floquet-Weyl semimetals driven by laser, a novel mechanism for optically controlling magnetic properties.

Findings

Laser induces uneven spin distribution on surface states.

Surface magnetization of about 1 mT is achieved.

Magnetization depends on laser intensity and frequency.

Abstract

We investigate optically induced magnetization in Floquet-Weyl semimetals generated by irradiation of a circularly-polarized continuous-wave laser from the group II-V narrow gap semiconductor Zn$_3$As$_2$ in a theoretical manner. Here, this trivial and nonmagnetic crystal is driven by the laser with a nearly resonant frequency with a band gap to generate two types of Floquet-Weyl semimetal phases composed of different spin states. These two phases host nontrivial two-dimensional surface states pinned to the respective pairs of the Weyl points. By numerically evaluating the laser-induced transient carrier-dynamics, it is found that both spins are distributed in an uneven manner on the corresponding surface states due to significantly different excitation probabilities caused by the circularly-polarized laser with the nearly resonant frequency. It is likely that such spin-polarized surface states produce surface magnetization, and furthermore the inverse Faraday effect also contributes almost as much as the spin magnetization. To be more specific, excited carries with high density of the order of $10^{21}\: {\rm cm}^{-3}$ are generated by the laser with electric field strength of a few MV/cm to result in the surface magnetization that becomes asymptotically constant with respect to time, around 1 mT. The magnitude and the direction of it depend sharply on both of the intensity and frequency of the driving laser, which would be detected by virtue of the magneto-optic Kerr effect.