Twistronic control of shift current in multilayer moir\'e system

Abstract

The bulk photovoltaic effect in non-centrosymmetric materials provides an alternative mechanism for the conversion of light into a current response compared to p-n junctions. Among its various contributions, the shift current is particularly attractive because it is governed by the geometric properties of electronic wavefunctions and can generate large photocurrents in low-dimensional materials. Here, we investigate the evolution of the shift current response in mono-, bi-, and trilayer H-MoS2, as well as in twisted moir\'e bilayers and trilayers. To describe large moir\'e supercells we develop a Slater-Koster tight-binding model parametrized from first-principles calculations. The resulting electronic structures and shift-current responses are compared with density functional theory calculations and Wannier-interpolated results to verify the accuracy of the approach. The model accurately reproduces the electronic structure near the band edges and captures the main spectral features of the shift current conductivity. We show that twisting breaks the crystal symmetry and activates additional conductivity tensor components that are forbidden in untwisted structures, leading to new tunable in-plane photocurrent components. Analysis of the shift distance reveals a direct connection between the twist-induced modification of the electronic wavefunctions and the increase of the nonlinear response. Our results establish the twist angle as an effective parameter for engineering shift current generation in multilayer transition-metal dichalcogenide base systems and demonstrate that tight-binding approaches provide a practical route for exploring nonlinear optical phenomena in large-scale moir\'e materials beyond the limits of conventional first-principles calculations.