Detecting the spread of valence band Wannier functions by optical sum rules

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to experimentally determine the gauge-invariant spread of valence band Wannier functions in various materials using optical sum rules and dielectric measurements, linking quantum geometry to observable optical properties.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to extract the gauge-invariant spread of Wannier functions from optical conductivity and absorbance data, applicable to 3D, 2D, and layered materials.

Findings

The gauge-invariant spread can be obtained from optical conductivity and absorbance measurements.

Application to materials like Si, Ge, Bi2Te3, and graphene demonstrates the method's effectiveness.

The approach can detect effects like spin-orbit coupling, flat bands, and substrate influences on Wannier functions.

Abstract

The spread of valence band Wannier functions in semiconductors and insulators is a characteristic property that gives a rough estimation of how insulating is the material. We elaborate that the gauge-invariant part of the spread can be extracted experimentally from optical conductivity and absorbance, owing to their equivalence to the quantum metric of the valence band states integrated over momentum. Because the quantum metric enters the matrix element of optical conductivity, the spread of valence band Wannier functions in the gapped 3D materials can be obtained from the frequency-integration of the imaginary part of the dielectric function. We demonstrate this practically for typical semiconductors like Si and Ge, and for topological insulators like Bi$_{2}$Te$_{3}$. In 2D materials, the spread of Wannier functions in the valence bands can be obtained from the absorbance divided by frequency and then integrated over frequency. Applying this method to graphene reveals a finite spread caused by intrinsic spin-orbit coupling, which may be detected by absorbance in the microwave range. The absorbance of twisted bilayer graphene in the millimeter wave range can be used to detect the formation of the flat bands and quantify their quantum metric. Finally, we apply our method to hexagonal transition metal dichalcogenides MX$_{2}$ (M = Mo, W; X = S, Se, Te) and demonstrate how other effects like substrate, excitons, and higher energy bands can affect the spread of Wannier function.