Photo-induced directional transport in extended SSH chains

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how light irradiation can induce and control directional current flow in extended SSH chains, enabling high-efficiency, optically tunable rectification for potential electronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to achieve and control light-induced rectification in extended SSH chains using Floquet theory and Green's functions, with high efficiency and polarization-based control.

Findings

Rectification efficiency exceeds 90% under optimal light conditions.

Direction of rectification can be controlled by light polarization.

Light irradiation induces anisotropy enabling directional current flow.

Abstract

We investigate the current-voltage characteristics of an extended Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain under irradiation by arbitrarily polarized light, demonstrating its potential as a light-controlled rectifier. Irradiation of light induces anisotropy in the system, enabling directional current flow and active control of rectification behavior. Our analysis demonstrates that, under optimized light parameters, the rectification efficiency can exceed 90\%. Moreover, the direction of rectification-whether positive or negative-can be precisely controlled by varying the polarization of the light, highlighting the potential for external optical control of electronic behavior. The effect of light irradiation is incorporated using the Floquet-Bloch ansatz combined with the minimal coupling scheme, while charge transport is computed through the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism within the Landauer-B\"{u}ttiker framework.