Orbital mechanism of the circular photogalvanic effect in quantum wells

It is shown that the free-carrier (Drude) absorption of circularly polarized radiation in quantum well structures leads to an electric current flow. The photocurrent reverses its direction upon switching the light helicity. A pure orbital mechanism of such a circular photogalvanic effect is proposed that is based on the interference of different pathways contributing to light absorption. Calculation shows that the magnitude of the helicity-dependent photocurrent in n-doped quantum well structures corresponds to recent experimental observations. The text was submitted by the author in English.     

Coherent photogalvanic valley Hall effect

The theory of the coherent photogalvanic valley Hall effect in two-dimensional systems with the Dirac spectrum of charge carriers is formulated. The study deals with a two-dimensional sample irradiated by two electromagnetic waves, at the fundamental and doubled frequencies. Both frequencies exceed the band gap of the material, whereas the wave with the fundamental frequency having circular polarization and a high intensity is taken into account in a nonperturbative manner. The wave at the doubled frequency is linearly polarized and the electrical conductivity of the two-dimensional system is calculated with respect to it. The effect under study manifests itself as the dc Hall current in the direction orthogonal to the electric field of the weak electromagnetic wave. It is assumed that, in equilibrium, the sample is in the insulating state with the completely occupied valence band and empty conduction band. The strong electromagnetic wave induces a nonequilibrium filling of the bands and the system passes to a strongly nonequilibrium steady state. The behavior of the Hall current in the case of nonequilibrium distribution functions is analyzed both including and disregarding the intraband relaxation and interband recombination.     

Antiferromagnetic photogalvanic effect in orthoaluminates

The antiferromagnetic photogalvanic effect in gadolinium, dysprosium, and terbium orthoaluminates is described within the phenomenological approach. The cases of linear and circular polarization of light are considered.     

Observation of the surface circular photogalvanic effect in InN films

A sizable spin-dependent photocurrent related to the interband transition in InN films is observed. The surface charge accumulation layer is suggested to be the origin of the circular photogalvanic current, which is consistent with the result of uniaxial strain experiments and the comparison of front and back incidence. The homogeneous photocurrent demonstrates the existence of spin splitting in the InN surface layer, and the structure inversion asymmetry (SIA)-dominant mechanism indicates a great possibility for the manipulation of spin splitting, which would undoubtedly benefit further research and applications of spintronics.     

Circular photogalvanic effect at inter-band excitation in InN

The circular photogalvanic effect (CPGE) is observed in InN at inter-band excitation. The function of the CPGE induced current on laser helicity is experimentally demonstrated and illustrated with the microscopic model. A spin-dependent current obtained in InN is one order larger than in the AlGaN/GaN heterostructures at inter-band excitation. The dependence of CPGE current amplitude on light power and incident angle can be well evaluated with phenomenological theory. This sizeable spin-dependent current not only provides an opportunity to realize spin polarized current at room temperature, but also can be utilized as a reliable tool of spin splitting investigation in semiconductors.     

“Circular” photogalvanic effect in optically active crystals

A novel photogalvanic effect induced by a circular polarized light in tellurium has been found. The absorption of light propagating along the C-axis of the crystal creates a fast e.m.f. which is proportional to the degree of the circular polarization and exhibits a sign dependence on the direction of the polarization.     

Equilibrium circular photogalvanic effect in a hybrid superconductor-semiconductor system

A dc electric current can be induced in a hybrid semiconductor-superconductor system under illumination of it by a circularly polarized light with the frequency below the energy of semiconductor interband transitions. In conditions when the light beam is unable to create real electron-hole excitations, this phenomenon is reminiscent of the Meissner effect in the static magnetic field. Such an effect can be employed in systems combining cavity photons and superconducting quantum circuits.     

On the photogalvanic effect in asymmetric quantum wells of different shapes

In this work we studied the charge carriers' behaviour in quantum structures where the symmetry with respect to space coordinates and time-reversal symmetry are broken simultaneously. As the models of such structures we considered finite triangular as well as finite semi-parabolic quantum wells placed in external magnetic field. We have shown by numerical analysis that the energy spectra of charge carriers in such structures are anisotropic with respect to in-plane (transverse) motion ?n(+kx)≠?n(−kx). This leads to the anisotropy of charge carrier's in-plane momentum transfer which can be very naturally explained by introducing the concept of charge carriers ‘renormalized’ effective masses. The anisotropy of momentum transfer leads to interesting photo-galvanic effect, the anisotropy of photo-conductivity σ(+kx)≠σ(−kx) and as it follows from our calculations, the effect though not very great, could be measurable for the magnetic field of about few T.     

The antiferromagnetic photovoltaic effect

It is established that the photovoltaic effect may occur in centroantisymmetric antiferromagnets. It is due to nontrivial transformations of the antiferromagnetic vector upon atomic transposition under the action of crystallochemical symmetry group elements of a medium. The direction of the photovoltaic current is shown to be governed by the crystal symmetry, its exchange magnetic structure, and the orientation of the antiferromagnetic vector about the crystallographic axes.     

Circular photogalvanic effect at inter-band excitation in semiconductor quantum wells

We observed a circular photogalvanic effect (CPGE) in GaAs quantum wells at inter-band excitation. The spectral dependence of the CPGE is measured together with that of the polarization degree of the time-resolved photoluminescence. A theoretical model takes into account spin splitting of conduction and valence bands.     

Magnetoelectric effect in antiferromagnetic crystals

Magnetoelectric experiments provide information on spin configurations, critical indices and microscopic ionic interactions. The basic theory of the magnetoelectric effect in antiferromagnets is rederived in this article and extended to situations in which there is an external magnetic field including the spin-flop phase. It is found that measurements of the magnetoelectric tensor α as a function of field in the antiferromagnetic and spin-flop phases of an antiferromagnet can provide more complete information in all three categories above. Certain higher-order terms are examined and it is found that it is possible to measure the staggered susceptibility directly in magnetoelectric materials. It is shown that a non-zero value of α causes a tetragonal antiferromagnet to be optically biaxial. A pedagogical discussion of the origins of magnetoelectric effects is given in the Appendix.     

铁磁/反铁磁双层膜中的磁锻炼效应

采用Monte Carlo 方法,研究铁磁/反铁磁双层膜中的磁锻炼效应.结果表明,反铁磁层中冷场诱发的界面净磁化(钉扎效应)的磁弛豫可导致系统中的交换偏置场的磁锻炼效应.进一步研究表明,反铁磁层中掺杂可调控交换偏置场的磁锻炼效应,原因在于反铁磁层中掺杂能有效地改变冷场诱发的净磁化的磁弛豫过程.     

Phonon softening in metallic nanotubes by a Peierls-like mechanism

The radial dependency of the vibrational frequencies of single-wall carbon nanotubes in the G band (1500-1600 cm(-1)) is studied by density functional theory. In metallic nanotubes, a mode with A1 symmetry is found to be significantly softer than the corresponding mode in insulating tubes or graphite. The mechanism that leads to the mode softening is explored. It is reminiscent of the driving force inducing Peierls distortions. At ambient temperature, the energy gained by opening the gap is, however, not sufficient for a static lattice distortion. Instead the corresponding vibrational frequency is lowered.     

Amplitude autocorrelation of femtosecond laser pulses using linear photogalvanic effect in sillenite crystals

We demonstrate excitation of the linear photogalvanic current in a Bi₁₂TiO₂₀ crystal by two orthogonally polarized femtosecond laser pulses with detecting the electrical current via charge accumulation on the sample electrodes. Such a setup was used to implement an interferometric autocorrelation technique for characterization of ultrashort light pulses. Integration of the detected current in femtosecond time domain leads to vanishing of a bipolar component of the photogalvanic current which arises due to a pulse chirping. The advantage of the proposed technique is that it produces the electric field correlation function directly without the need for data processing using a compact, robust, and non-expensive detector in the form of a photoconductive cell of a non-centrosymmetric crystal.     

Magnon spin Nernst effect on the antiferromagnetic checkerboard lattice

In this paper we study topological effects in an anisotropic checkerboard antiferromagnetic lattice in the presence of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). The time reversal symmetry is broken by anisotropies in the Hamiltonian. However, in contrast to the honeycomb lattice, the DMI does not open a gap here. We calculate the energy spectrum of the magnons and the spin Nernst coefficient in the presence of a longitudinal temperature gradient.     

Undressing the Kondo effect near the antiferromagnetic quantum critical point

The problem of a spin-1/2 magnetic impurity near an antiferromagnetic transition of the host lattice is shown to transform to a multichannel problem. A variety of fixed points is discovered asymptotically near the antiferromagnetic critical point. Among these is a new variety of stable fixed point of a multichannel Kondo problem which does not require channel isotropy. At this point Kondo screening disappears but coupling to spin fluctuations remains. In addition to its intrinsic interest, the problem is an essential ingredient in the problem of quantum critical points in heavy fermions.     

Edge absorption and circular photogalvanic effect in 2D topological insulator edges

The electron absorption on the edge states and the edge photocurrent of a 2D topological insulator (TI) are studied. We consider the optical transitions within linear edge branches of the energy spectrum. The interaction with impurities is taken into account. The circular polarization is found to produce the edge photocurrent, the direction of which is determined by light polarization and edge orientation.