Orbital Inverse Faraday and Cotton-Mouton Effects in Hall Fluids

TL;DR

This paper explores two light-induced orbital magnetization effects in quantum Hall fluids, revealing new mechanisms for magnetization and density profile manipulation using polarized light.

Contribution

It introduces the orbital inverse Faraday and Cotton-Mouton effects in quantum Hall fluids, demonstrating their dominance and potential for optical control of magnetization and density profiles.

Findings

Inverse Faraday effect dominates in QH regime

Linearly polarized light induces measurable magnetization

Optical quantum printing of density profiles is possible

Abstract

We report two light-induced orbital magnetization effects in quantum Hall (QH) fluids, stemming from their transverse response. The first is a purely transverse contribution to the inverse Faraday effect (IFE), where circularly polarized light induces a DC magnetization by stirring the charged fluid. This contribution dominates the IFE in the QH regime. The second is the orbital inverse Cotton-Mouton effect (ICME), in which linearly polarized light generates a DC magnetization. Since the applied field in the ICME does not break time-reversal symmetry, the induced magnetization directly probes the chiral orbital response of the fluid at the driving frequency. We estimate that the resulting magnetization lies in the range of 0.5-10 Bohr magnetons per charge carrier in materials such as graphene and transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) in the QH regime. Finally, we show that the induced magnetization is accompanied by a local correction to the static particle density, enabling optical quantum printing of density profiles into the QH fluid.