Tailoring Photocurrent in Weyl Semimetals via Intense Laser Irradiation

Abstract

Generating and tailoring photocurrent in topological materials has immense importance in fundamental studies and the technological front. Present work introduces a universal method to generate ultrafast photocurrent in {\it both} inversion-symmetric and inversion-broken Weyl semimetals with degenerate Weyl nodes at the Fermi level. Our approach harnesses the asymmetric electronic population in the conduction band induced by an intense {\it single-color} circularly polarized laser pulse. It has been found that the induced photocurrent can be tailored by manipulating helicity and ellipticity of the employed laser. Moreover, our approach generates photocurrent in realistic situations when the Weyl nodes are positioned at different energies and have finite tilt along a certain direction. Present work adds a new dimension on practical applications of Weyl semimetals for optoelectronics and photonics-based quantum technologies.