Ultrafast topological phenomena in gapped graphene

In the model of gapped graphene, we have shown how the recently predicted topological resonances are solely related to the presence of an energy band gap at the $K$ and $K^\prime$ points of the Brillouin zone. In the field of a strong single-oscillation chiral (circularly-polarized) optical pulse, the topological resonance causes the valley-selective population of the conduction band. This population distribution represents a chiral texture in the reciprocal space that is structured with respect to the pulse separatrix as has earlier been predicted for transition metal dichalcogenides. As the band gap is switched off, this chirality gradually disappears replaced by an achiral distribution characteristic of graphene.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure

Femtosecond valley polarization and topological resonances in transition metal dichalcogenides

We theoretically introduce the fundamentally fastest induction of a significant population and valley polarization in a monolayer of a transition metal dichalcogenide (i.e., $\mathrm{MoS_2}$ and $\mathrm{WS_2}$). This may be extended to other two-dimensional materials with the same symmetry. This valley polarization can be written and read-out by a pulse consisting of just a single optical oscillation with a duration of a few femtoseconds and an amplitude of $\sim0.2~\mathrm V/\mathrm{\AA}$. Under these conditions, we predict a new effect of {\em topological resonance}, which is due to Bloch motion of electrons in the reciprocal space where electron population textures are formed defined by non-Abelian Berry curvature. The predicted phenomena can be applied for information storage and processing in PHz-band optoelectronics.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Ultrafast strong-field absorption in gapped graphene

We study theoretically the strong-field absorption of an ultrafast optical pulse by a gapped graphene monolayer. At low field amplitudes, the absorbance in the pristine graphene is equal to the universal value of $2.3$ percent. Although the ultrafast optical absorption for low field amplitudes is independent of the polarization, linear or circular, of the applied optical pulse, for high field amplitudes, the absorption strongly depends on the pulse polarization. For a linearly polarized pulse, the optical absorbance is saturated at the value of $\approx 1.4$ percent for the pulse's amplitude of $\geq 0.4~\mathrm{V/\AA}$, but no such saturation is observed for a circularly polarized pulse. For the gapped graphene, the absorption of a linearly polarized pulse has a weak dependence on the bandgap, while for a circularly polarized pulse, the absorption is very sensitive to the bandgap. %Opening a bandgap in graphene by placing in on, for example, SiC substrate strongly modify the ultrafast absorption at small field amplitudes

Femtosecond currents in transition metal dichalcogenides monolayers

We theoretically study the interaction of an ultrafast intense linearly polarized optical pulse with monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). Such a strong pulse redistributes electrons between the bands and generates femtosecond currents during the pulse. Due to the large bandwidth of the incident pulse, this process is completely off-resonant. While in TMDCs the time-reversal symmetry is conserved, the inversion symmetry is broken and these monolayers have the axial symmetry along armchair direction but not along the zigzag one. Therefore, the pulse polarized along the asymmetric direction of TMDC monolayer generates both longitudinal, i.e., along the direction of polarization, and transverse, i.e., in the perpendicular direction, currents. Such currents result in charge transfer through the system. We study different TMDC materials and show how the femtosecond transport in TMDC monolayers depend on their parameters, such as lattice constant and bandgap

Anomalous Ultrafast All-Optical Hall Effect in Gapped Graphene

We propose an ultrafast all-optical anomalous Hall effect in two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors of hexagonal symmetry such as gapped graphene (GG), transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). To induce such an effect, the material is subjected to a sequence of two strong-field single-optical-cycle pulses: a chiral pump pulse followed within a few femtoseconds by a probe pulse linearly polarized in the armchair direction of the 2D lattice. Due to the effect of topological resonance, the first (pump) pulse induces a large chirality (valley polarization) in the system, while the second pulse generates a femtosecond pulse of the anomalous Hall current. The proposed effect is the fundamentally the fastest all-optical anomalous Hall effect possible in nature. It can be applied to ultrafast all-optical storage and processing of information, both classical and quantum

Laser pulse waveform control of Dirac fermions in graphene

We theoretically study the Dirac fermion dynamics in a graphene monolayer in the presence of an applied ultrafast laser pulse. The pulse has the duration of a few femtoseconds and the amplitude of ~ 0.1 - 0.5 $\mathrm{V/\AA}$. The waveform of the pulse is described by Hermit Gaussian polynomials with varying carrier-envelope phase. We show that the ultrafast dynamics of Dirac fermions strongly depends on the carrier-envelope phase and the frequency of the applied pulse. The ultrafast pulse generates an electric current which results in a finite transferred charge. The ultrafast field-driven current and the corresponding net transferred charge depend on the waveform of the applied pulse. Our results pave the way for the development of ultrafast information processing in the terahertz domain

Topological resonance and single-optical-cycle valley polarization in gapped graphene

For gapped graphene, we predict that an intense ultrashort (single-oscillation) circularly-polarized optical pulse can induce a large population of the conduction band and a large valley polarization. With an increase in the bandgap, the magnitude of the valley polarization gradually increases from zero (for the native gapless graphene) to a value on the order of unity. The energy bandwidth of the electrons excited into the conduction band can be very large ($\gtrsim 10$ eV for a reasonable pulse amplitude of $\sim 0.5$ $\mathrm{V/\AA}$). These phenomena are due to the effect of topological resonance: the matching of the topological (geometric) phase and the dynamic phase. Gapped graphene with tunable bandgap can be used as a convenient generic model of two-dimensional semiconductors with honeycomb generic lattice structures and broken inversion symmetry, such as transition metal dichalcogenides

Fundamentally fastest optical processes at the surface of a topological insulator

We predict that a single oscillation of a strong optical pulse can significantly populate the surface conduction band of a three-dimensional topological insulator, Bi2Se3. Both linearly- and circularly-polarized pulses generate chiral textures of interference fringes of population in the surface Brillouin zone. These fringes constitute a self-referenced electron hologram carrying information on the topology of the surface Bloch bands, in particular, on the effect of the warping term of the low-energy Hamiltonian. These electron-interference phenomena are in a sharp contrast to graphene where there are no chiral textures for a linearly-polarized pulse and no interference fringes for circularly-polarized pulse. These predicted reciprocal space electron-population textures can be measured experimentally by time resolved angle resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (TR-ARPES) to gain direct access to non-Abelian Berry curvature at topological insulator surfaces.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Topological resonance in Weyl semimetals in circularly-polarized optical pulse

We study theoretically the ultrafast electron dynamics of three-dimensional Weyl semimetals in the field of a laser pulse. For a circularly-polarized pulse, such dynamics is governed by topological resonance, which manifests itself as a specific conduction band population distribution in the vicinity of the Weyl points. The topological resonance is determined by the competition between the topological phase and the dynamic phase and depends on the handedness of a circularly polarized pulse. Also, we show that the conduction band population induced by a circularly-polarized pulse that consists of two oscillations with opposite handedness is highly chiral, which represents the intrinsic chirality of the Weyl points