Intraband circular photogalvanic effect in Weyl semimetals

TL;DR

This paper investigates the intraband circular photogalvanic effect in Weyl semimetals using semiclassical theory, highlighting discrepancies with quantum approaches and emphasizing the need for additional microscopic mechanisms.

Contribution

It identifies the limitations of existing semiclassical models in fully describing the CPGE in Weyl semimetals and suggests the necessity of incorporating new microscopic mechanisms.

Findings

Discrepancies between semiclassical and quantum approaches to CPGE.

Existing semiclassical mechanisms do not fully account for CPGE in Weyl semimetals.

A new microscopic mechanism is needed for accurate semiclassical modeling.

Abstract

We apply the semiclassical theory including the Berry curvature dipole, side jumps and skew scattering for a quantitative description of the circular photogalvanic effect (CPGE) in Weyl semimetals at intraband absorption. In contrast to gapped systems where they completely exhaust all contributions to the CPGE current, all previously known semiclassical mechanisms give a result different from that obtained using a complete quantum-mechanical approach. We show that this difference in the existing quasiclassical and full quantum-mechanical approaches persists at all spatial ranges of the disorder potential. Apparently, the implementation of another microscopic mechanism into the quasiclassical description of the CPGE is required.