Second-order optical response of superconductors induced by supercurrent injection

TL;DR

This paper develops a theory for the nonlinear optical response of superconductors under supercurrent, revealing current-dependent peaks at the superconducting gap edge and connecting predictions with recent experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive theoretical framework for supercurrent-induced second-order optical responses in superconductors, including collective mode effects and gauge invariance.

Findings

Identifies current-dependent peaks at the superconducting gap edge in nonlinear optical conductivities.

Shows the peaks diverge in the clean limit, indicating strong effects.

Predicts the supercurrent-induced nonlinear optical response magnitude matches recent experiments.

Abstract

We develop a theory of the nonlinear optical responses in superconducting systems in the presence of a dc supercurrent. The optical transitions between particle-hole pair bands across the superconducting gap are allowed in clean superconductors as the inversion symmetry breaking by supercurrent. Vertex correction is included in optical conductivity to maintain the $U(1)$ gauge symmetry in the mean-field formalism, which contains the contributions from collective modes. We show two pronounced current-dependent peaks in the second-harmonic generalization $\sigma^{(2)}(2\omega,\omega,\omega)$ at the gap edge $2\hbar\omega=2\Delta$ and $\hbar\omega=2\Delta$ and one in the photocurrent effect $\sigma^{(2)}(0,\omega,-\omega)$ at $\hbar\omega=2\Delta$, all of which diverge in the clean limit. We demonstrate this in the models of a single-band superconductor with $s$-wave and $d$-wave pairings, and Dirac fermion systems with $s$-wave pairing. Our theory predicts that the current-induced peak in $\text{Im}[\sigma^{(2)}(\omega)]$ is proportional to the square of the supercurrent density in the $s$-wave single-band model, with the same order of magnitude as the recent experimental observation of second-harmonic generation in NbN by Nakamura et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 097004 (2020)]. Supercurrent induced nonlinear optical spectroscopy provides a valuable toolbox to explore novel superconductors.