Bulk photovoltaic effects in altermagnets

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Ezawa, Motohiko
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Ezawa, Motohiko
author_facet Ezawa, Motohiko
contents The bulk photovoltaic effect is a photocurrent generation from alternating electric field, which is a promising candidate for future efficient solar cell technology. It is the second-order optical current, which is the injection current or the shift current. We focus on the direct current generation. By employing a simple two-band model of the $d$-wave altermagnet coupled with the Rashba interaction, we show that the linearly polarized light can generate the injection and shift currents when the Néel vector points to an in-plane direction. The magnitude of the injection current is almost constant over a wide range of the frequency $ω$ of the applied light provided it is smaller than a certain critical frequency $ω_{\text{c}}$ and larger than the bulk gap energy $\varepsilon _{\text{gap}}$, $\varepsilon _{\text{gap}}<\hbar ω<\hbar ω_{\text{c}}$. Hence, the use of the injection current is quite efficient for solar cell technology because any photon whose energy is within this range can be equally utilized.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_16477
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Bulk photovoltaic effects in altermagnets
Ezawa, Motohiko
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
The bulk photovoltaic effect is a photocurrent generation from alternating electric field, which is a promising candidate for future efficient solar cell technology. It is the second-order optical current, which is the injection current or the shift current. We focus on the direct current generation. By employing a simple two-band model of the $d$-wave altermagnet coupled with the Rashba interaction, we show that the linearly polarized light can generate the injection and shift currents when the Néel vector points to an in-plane direction. The magnitude of the injection current is almost constant over a wide range of the frequency $ω$ of the applied light provided it is smaller than a certain critical frequency $ω_{\text{c}}$ and larger than the bulk gap energy $\varepsilon _{\text{gap}}$, $\varepsilon _{\text{gap}}<\hbar ω<\hbar ω_{\text{c}}$. Hence, the use of the injection current is quite efficient for solar cell technology because any photon whose energy is within this range can be equally utilized.
title Bulk photovoltaic effects in altermagnets
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.16477