Photocurrent-driven transient symmetry breaking in the Weyl semimetal TaAs

N Sirica¹, P P Orth^{2

3}, M S Scheurer⁴, Y M Dai^{5

6}, M-C Lee⁵, P Padmanabhan⁵, L T Mix⁵, S W Teitelbaum^{7

8}, M Trigo^{9

10}, L X Zhao¹¹, G F Chen¹¹, B Xu¹¹, R Yang¹¹, B Shen^{12

13}, C Hu¹², C-C Lee¹⁴, H Lin¹⁵, T A Cochran¹⁶, S A Trugman⁵, J-X Zhu⁵, M Z Hasan^{16

17}, N Ni¹², X G Qiu¹¹, A J Taylor⁵, D A Yarotski⁵, R P Prasankumar¹⁸

Affiliations

¹ Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA. nsirica@lanl.gov.
² Ames Laboratory, Ames, IA, USA.
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.
⁴ Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
⁵ Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
⁶ Center for Superconducting Physics and Materials, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁷ Department of Physics, Arizona State Univeristy, Tempe, AZ, USA.
⁸ Beus CXFEL Labs, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State Univeristy, Tempe, AZ, USA.
⁹ Stanford PULSE Institute, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA.
¹¹ Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
¹² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
¹³ State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Physics, Guangzhou, China.
¹⁴ Department of Physics, Tamkang University, New Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁵ Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁶ Laboratory for Topological Quantum Matter and Advanced Spectroscopy (B7), Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
¹⁷ Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹⁸ Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA. rpprasan@lanl.gov.

PMID: 34750539
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-021-01126-9

Free article

Photocurrent-driven transient symmetry breaking in the Weyl semimetal TaAs

N Sirica et al. Nat Mater. 2022 Jan.

Free article

. 2022 Jan;21(1):62-66.

doi: 10.1038/s41563-021-01126-9. Epub 2021 Nov 8.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA. nsirica@lanl.gov.
² Ames Laboratory, Ames, IA, USA.
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.
⁴ Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
⁵ Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
⁶ Center for Superconducting Physics and Materials, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁷ Department of Physics, Arizona State Univeristy, Tempe, AZ, USA.
⁸ Beus CXFEL Labs, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State Univeristy, Tempe, AZ, USA.
⁹ Stanford PULSE Institute, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA.
¹¹ Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
¹² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
¹³ State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Physics, Guangzhou, China.
¹⁴ Department of Physics, Tamkang University, New Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁵ Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁶ Laboratory for Topological Quantum Matter and Advanced Spectroscopy (B7), Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
¹⁷ Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹⁸ Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA. rpprasan@lanl.gov.

PMID: 34750539
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-021-01126-9

Abstract

Symmetry plays a central role in conventional and topological phases of matter, making the ability to optically drive symmetry changes a critical step in developing future technologies that rely on such control. Topological materials, like topological semimetals, are particularly sensitive to a breaking or restoring of time-reversal and crystalline symmetries, which affect both bulk and surface electronic states. While previous studies have focused on controlling symmetry via coupling to the crystal lattice, we demonstrate here an all-electronic mechanism based on photocurrent generation. Using second harmonic generation spectroscopy as a sensitive probe of symmetry changes, we observe an ultrafast breaking of time-reversal and spatial symmetries following femtosecond optical excitation in the prototypical type-I Weyl semimetal TaAs. Our results show that optically driven photocurrents can be tailored to explicitly break electronic symmetry in a generic fashion, opening up the possibility of driving phase transitions between symmetry-protected states on ultrafast timescales.

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References

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Photocurrent-driven transient symmetry breaking in the Weyl semimetal TaAs

Affiliations

Photocurrent-driven transient symmetry breaking in the Weyl semimetal TaAs

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

References

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