Competition between the inter-valley scattering and the intra-valley scattering on magnetoconductivity induced by screened Coulomb disorder in Weyl semimetals

Recent experiments on Weyl semimetals reveal that charged impurities may play an important role. We use a screened Coulomb disorder to model the charged impurities, and study the magneto-transport in a two-node Weyl semimetal. It is found that when the external magnetic field is applied parallel to the electric field, the calculated longitudinal magnetoconductivity shows positive in the magnetic field, which is just the negative longitudinal magnetoresistivity (LMR) observed in experiments. When the two fields are perpendicular to each other, the transverse magnetoconductivities are measured. It is found that the longitudinal (transverse) magnetoconductivity is suppressed (enhanced) sensitively with increasing the screening length. This feature makes it hardly to observe the negative LMR in Weyl semimetals experimentally owing to a small screening length. Our findings gain insight into further understanding on recently actively debated magneto-transport behaviors in Weyl semimetals. Furthermore we studied the relative weight of the inter-valley scattering and the intra-valley scattering. It shows that the former is as important as the latter and even dominates in the case of strong magnetic fields and small screening length. We emphasize that the discussions on inter-valley scattering is out of the realm of one-node model which has been studied.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Single or multi-flavor Kondo effect in graphene

Based on the tight-binding formalism, we investigate the Anderson and the Kondo model for an adaom magnetic impurity above graphene. Different impurity positions are analyzed. Employing a partial wave representation we study the nature of the coupling between the impurity and the conducting electrons. The components from the two Dirac points are mixed while interacting with the impurity. Two configurations are considered explicitly: the adatom is above one atom (ADA), the other case is the adatom above the center the honeycomb (ADC). For ADA the impurity is coupled with one flavor for both A and B sublattice and both Dirac points. For ADC the impurity couples with multi-flavor states for a spinor state of the impurity. We show, explicitly for a 3d magnetic atom, $d_{z^{2}}$, ($d_{xz}$,$d_{yz}$), and ($d_{x^{2}-y^{2}}$,$d_{xy}$) couple respectively with the $\Gamma_{1}$, $\Gamma_{5} (E_{1})$, and $\Gamma_{6} (E_{2})$ representations (reps) of $C_{6v}$ group in ADC case. The basses for these reps of graphene are also derived explicitly. For ADA we calculate the Kondo temperature.Comment: 11 pages, 1 fures, 2 tables, accepted by EP

Laser-assisted spin-polarized transport in graphene tunnel junctions

Keldysh nonequilibrium Green's function method is utilized to study theoretically the spin polarized transport through a graphene spin valve irradiated by a monochromatic laser field. It is found that the bias dependence of the differential conductance exhibits successive peaks corresponding to the resonant tunneling through the photon-assisted sidebands. The multi photon processes originate from the combined effects of the radiation field and the graphene tunneling properties, and are shown to be substantially suppressed in a graphene spin valve which results in a decrease of the differential conductance for a high bias voltage. We also discussed the appearance of a dynamical gap around zero bias due to the radiation field. The gap width can be tuned by changing the radiation electric field strength and the frequency. This leads to a shift of the resonant peaks in the differential conductance. We also demonstrate numerically the dependencies of the radiation and spin valve effects on the parameters of the external fields and those of the electrodes. We find that the combined effects of the radiation field, the graphene, and the spin valve properties bring about an oscillatory behavior in the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR), and this oscillatory amplitude can be changed by scanning the radiation field strength and/or the frequency.Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures, corrected version to the paper in J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 24 (2012) 26600

Magnon Spin Photogalvanic Effect in Collinear Ferromagnets

We propose a spin photogalvanic effect of magnons with broken inversion symmetry. The dc spin photocurrent is generated via the Aharonov-Casher effect, which includes the Drude, Berry curvature dipole, shift, injection, and rectification components with distinct quantum geometric origin. Based on a symmetry classification, we uncover that there exist linearly polarized (LP) magnon spin photocurrent responses in the breathing kagome-lattice ferromagnet with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, and the circularly polarized (CP) responses due to the symmetry breaking by applying a uniaxial strain. We address that the topological phase transitions can be characterized by the spin photocurrents. This study presents a deeper insight into the nonlinear responses of light-magnon interactions, and suggests a possible way to generate and control the magnon spin current in real materials

Nonlinear photocurrents from radio to infrared region in the WTe2_2 monolayer: A quantum kinetics study

Second-order nonlinear photocurrents, which refer to DC current [i.e., photogalvanic effect (PGE)] and second harmonic current [i.e., second harmonic generation (SHG)] induced by light, are important physical phenomena in nonlinear optics. The PGE (SHG) related to linearly and circularly polarized light are called the linear and circular PGE (LPGE and CPGE) [linear and circular SHG (LSHG and CSHG)], respectively. In this work, we use the quantum kinetics under relaxation time approximation to study the dependence of second-order nonlinear photocurrents on Fermi level and frequency under different out-of-plane electric fields in WTe$_2$ monolayer from radio to infrared region. We find that the maximum frequency at which the Berry curvature dipole mechanism for the nonlinear Hall effect plays a major role is about 1 THz. In radio and microwave regions, two large peaks of nonlinear conductivities occur when the Fermi level is equal to the energy corresponding to gap-opening points. In terms of frequency, in radio region, LPGE and SHG conductivities maintain a large constant while the CPGE conductivity disappears. In microwave region, LPGE and SHG start to decrease with increasing frequency while the CPGE is large. In 125-300 THz region and in y direction, the presence of DC current without the disturbance of second harmonic current under circularly polarized light may be useful for fabricating new optoelectronic devices. Moreover, we illustrate that when calculating the nonlinear photocurrents of practical materials, the theories in the clean limit fail and it is necessary to use a theory that considers scattering effects. We also point out that for materials with femtosecond-scale relaxation times and complex energy band structures, the quantum kinetics is more accurate than the semi-classical Boltzmann equation method. Besides, phenomenological expressions of PGE and SHG are provided

Effect of Impurities and Effective Masses on Spin-Dependent Electrical Transport in Ferromagnet-Normal Metal-Ferromagnet Hybrid Junctions

The effect of nonmagnetic impurities and the effective masses on the spin-dependent transport in a ferromagnet-normal metal-ferromagnet junction is investigated on the basis of a two-band model. Our results show that impurities and the effective masses of electrons in two ferromagnetic electrodes have remarkable effects on the behaviors of the conductance, namely, both affect the oscillating amplitudes, periods, as well as the positions of the resonant peaks of the conductance considerably. The impurity tends to suppress the amplitudes of the conductance, and makes the spin-valve effect less obvious, but under certain conditions the phenomenon of the so-called impurity-induced resonant tunneling is clearly observed. The impurity and the effective mass both can lead to nonmonotonous oscillation of the junction magnetoresistance (JMR) with the incident energy and the thickness of the normal metal. It is also observed that a smaller difference of the effective masses of electrons in two ferromagnetic electrodes would give rise to a larger amplitude of the JMR.Comment: Revtex, 10 figure

Symmetry Dictionary on Charge and Spin Nonlinear Responses for All Magnetic Point Groups with Nontrivial Topological Nature

Recently, charge or spin nonlinear transport with nontrivial topological properties in crystal materials has attracted much attention. In this paper, we perform a comprehensive symmetry analysis for all 122 magnetic point groups (MPGs) and provide a useful dictionary for charge and spin nonlinear transport from Berry curvature dipole, Berry connection polarization and Drude term with nontrivial topological nature. The results are obtained by making a full symmetry investigation on matrix representations of six nonlinear response tensors. We further identify every MPG that can accommodate two or three of the nonlinear tensors. The present work gives a solid theoretical basis for overall understanding the second-order nonlinear responses in realistic materials.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure