SearcharxivSearch

arXiv · 2501.16498

Electrically tunable Floquet Weyl photon emission from Dirac semimetal Cd3As2

Abstract

The ability to optically engineer the Dirac band and electrically control the Fermi level in two-dimensional (2D) Dirac systems, such as graphene, has significantly advanced quantum technologies. However, similar tunability has remained elusive in three-dimensional Dirac systems. In this work, we demonstrate both optical and electrical tunability of the band structure in the 3D Dirac semimetal Cd3As2. Photoexcitation with circularly polarized light breaks time-reversal symmetry, lifting the degeneracy at Dirac points to transform the material into a Floquet Weyl semimetal with chiral Weyl nodes. This transition induces nonzero Berry curvature, giving rise to helicity-dependent transverse anomalous photocurrents, detectable through terahertz emission at normal incidence. Furthermore, applying an external electric field displaces the Fermi level away from the Dirac point, enlarging the Dirac cone projection leading to a reduced density of states of Fermi arcs. As a result, we achieve precise electrical control over Floquet band engineering, resulting in a large modulation of THz emission. Moreover, at oblique incidence, the circular photon-drag effect induces helicity-dependent longitudinal photocurrents. Simultaneous generation and manipulation of both longitudinal and transverse photocurrents enable precise control of the helicity of emitted THz pulses. These results pave the way for electric field-controlled Floquet Weyl THz sources, offering significant potential for applications in quantum computing and low-power electronics.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Sobhan Subhra Mishra, Thomas CaiWei Tan, Manoj Gupta, Faxian Xiu, Ranjan Singh. 2025-01-27. Electrically tunable Floquet Weyl photon emission from Dirac semimetal Cd3As2. https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.16498

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Measuring chiral phonons

Chiral phonons are quantized vibrations where the atomic motion in a solid breaks improper rotation symmetries. In many cases, chiral phonons possess angular momenta and are therefore selective to circularly polarized light. Both fundamental and applied research efforts on chiral phonons have been gaining increasing attention owing to their importance in a variety of fields including spintronics, spin-selective chemical reactions, thermal transport, quantum information processing and biosensing, where the bi-directional spin-lattice coupling enabled by chiral phonons can be harnessed in new ways, and potentially lead to new functionalities. Thus far, the studies of chiral phonons across diverse materials platforms have evolved largely independently within these fields, but the experimental techniques are often interrelated. In this perspective, we present a detailed description, as well as advantages and disadvantages of the current approaches for experimentally measuring chiral phonons in chiral and achiral materials. We conclude with a discussion of new methods for measuring chiral phonons. Ultimately, this work seeks to offer an experimental guide for systematically investigating the properties of chiral phonons in various materials systems and applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci

A model of grain growth in UN integrating molecular dynamics, phase-field modeling, and uncertainty quantification

Grain growth kinetics and grain-boundary (GB) properties in uranium mononitride (UN) are investigated through an integrated multiscale framework combining molecular dynamics (MD), phase-field modeling, and surrogate-assisted uncertainty quantification. MD simulations yield GB energies for 27 symmetric tilt boundaries from 0--2000~K, which are consistent with available DFT values. The average GB energy is nearly temperature-independent below 1000~K and increases at higher temperatures. A mechanistic pore-drag model applied to the only available grain growth dataset for actinide nitrides yields a mobility reduction factor of $s \approx 0.93$--$0.99$, statistically indistinguishable from unity, confirming that pore drag is negligible under the experimental conditions. The intrinsic GB mobility is therefore extracted directly from the effective mobility, yielding $M_0 = 2.05\times10^{-15}$~m$^4$/(J$\cdot$s) and $Q_M = 0.89$~eV. Phase-field simulations conducted from 1500--2000~K confirm normal curvature-driven grain growth, with grain size distributions converging to the Hillert-like form. A surrogate-assisted global sensitivity analysis---combining principal component analysis, Gaussian process regression, and Sobol decomposition---reveals that the mobility prefactor $M_0$ dominates output variance at all times, followed by the activation energy $Q_M$, while the GB energy $\gamma$ contributes minimally. These results establish the first quantitative grain growth framework for UN and identify the reduction of uncertainty in $M_0$ and $Q_M$ as the highest-priority target for future experimental efforts.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci

Silicon Solar Cell Design for >30% Efficiency via Singlet Fission

Singlet fission (SF) materials convert high-energy photons into multiple charge carriers, providing a route to exceed the efficiency limits of single-junction silicon solar cells without many of the complexities of multi-junction tandem designs. Following the first demonstration of an SF-enhanced silicon solar cell in 2025, there is a need to understand how SF materials can be effectively integrated into high-efficiency industrial silicon devices and translated from proof of concept to a manufacturable technology. Using coupled optical and electrical simulations, we assess the efficiency potential of several industrially relevant silicon cell architectures combined with SF materials. Interdigitated back-contact (IBC) cells offer the greatest potential for improvement due to unrestricted front-surface access and can achieve efficiencies exceeding 33%. However, performance is highly sensitive to front-surface passivation quality. Appropriate silicon design, particularly controlled surface doping and fixed interfacial charge, can mitigate recombination losses and relax passivation requirements for ultra-thin exciton-transfer layers.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci