Topological Enhancement of Nonlinear Transports in Unconventional Point-Node Semimetals

Abstract

The topological singularity of the Bloch states close to the Fermi level significantly enhances nonlinear electric responses in topological semimetals. Here, we systematically characterize this enhancement for a large class of topological nodal-point fermions, including those with linear, linear-quadratic, and quadratic dispersions. Specifically, we determine the leading power-law dependence of the nonlinear response functions on the chemical potential $\mu$ defined relative to the nodal point. We identify two characteristics that qualitatively improve nonlinear transports compared to those of conventional Dirac and Weyl fermions. First, the type II (over-tilted) spectrum leads to the $\log\mu$ enhancement of nonlinear response functions having zero scaling dimension with respect to $\mu$, which is not seen in a type-I (moderately or not tilted) spectrum. Second, the anisotropic linear-quadratic dispersion increases the power of small-$\mu$ divergence for the nonlinear response tensors along the linearly dispersing direction. Our work reveals new experimental signatures of unconventional nodal points in topological semimetals as well as provides a guiding principle for giant nonlinear electric responses.