Circular Photon Drag Effect in Dirac electrons by Quantum Geometry

Abstract

Quantum geometry is a well-established framework for understanding transport and optical responses in quantum materials. In this work, I study the photon drag effect in Dirac electrons using the quantum geometric interpretation of non-vertical optical transitions. Due to the particle-hole symmetry inherent in Dirac electrons, the shift photon-drag photocurrent is dominated by dissipationless Fermi surface contributions, connected to the dipole of quantum metric tensor. I find that this dipole is significantly enhanced by a small band gap in massive Dirac electrons and remains robust in the massless limit. I demonstrate the existence of a circular shift photon-drag current in the effective Hamiltonian at the L-point of bismuth, where the bands exhibit trivial topology, highlighting the ubiquity of the circular photon-drag effect in centrosymmetric materials.