No Arabic abstract
We studied the nonlinear electric response in WTe2 and MoTe2 monolayers. When the inversion symmetry is breaking but the the time-reversal symmetry is preserved, a second-order Hall effect called the nonlinear anomalous Hall effect (NLAHE) emerges owing to the nonzero Berry curvature on the nonequilibrium Fermi surface. We reveal a strong NLAHE with a Hall-voltage that is quadratic with respect to the longitudinal current. The optimal current direction is normal to the mirror plane in these two-dimensional (2D) materials. The NLAHE can be sensitively tuned by an out-of-plane electric field, which induces a transition from a topological insulator to a normal insulator. Crossing the critical transition point, the magnitude of the NLAHE increases, and its sign is reversed. Our work paves the way to discover exotic nonlinear phenomena in inversion-symmetry-breaking 2D materials.
A circularly polarized a.c. pump field illuminated near resonance on two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) produces an anomalous Hall effect in response to a d.c. bias field. In this work, we develop a theory for this photo-induced anomalous Hall effect in undoped TMDs irradiated by a strong coherent laser field. The strong field renormalizes the equilibrium bands and opens up a dynamical energy gap where single-photon resonance occurs. The resulting photon dressed states, or Floquet states, are treated within the rotating wave approximation. A quantum kinetic equation approach is developed to study the non-equilibrium density matrix and time-averaged transport currents under the simultaneous influence of the strong a.c. pump field and the weak d.c. probe field. Dissipative effects are taken into account in the kinetic equation that captures relaxation and dephasing. The photo-induced longitudinal and Hall conductivities display notable resonant signatures when the pump field frequency reaches the spin-split interband transition energies. Rather than valley polarization, we find that the anomalous Hall current is mainly driven by the intraband response of photon-dressed electron populations near the dynamical gap at both valleys, accompanied by a smaller contribution due to interband coherences. These findings highlight the importance of photon-dressed bands and non-equilibrium distribution functions in achieving a proper understanding of photo-induced anomalous Hall effect in a strong pump field.
This paper presents a theoretical description of both the valley Zeeman effect (g-factors) and Landau levels in two-dimensional H-phase transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) using the Luttinger-Kohn approximation with spin-orbit coupling. At the valley extrema in TMDs, energy bands split into Landau levels with a Zeeman shift in the presence of a uniform out-of-plane external magnetic field. The Landau level indices are symmetric in the $K$ and $K$ valleys. We develop a numerical approach to compute the single band g-factors from first principles without the need for a sum over unoccupied bands. Many-body effects are included perturbatively within the GW approximation. Non-local exchange and correlation self-energy effects in the GW calculations increase the magnitude of single band g-factors compared to those obtained from density functional theory. Our first principles results give spin- and valley-split Landau levels, in agreement with recent optical experiments. The exciton g-factors deduced in this work are also in good agreement with experiment for the bright and dark excitons in monolayer WSe$_2$, as well as the lowest-energy bright excitons in MoSe$_2$-WSe$_2$ heterobilayers with different twist angles.
Quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) insulator is a topological phase which exhibits chiral edge states in the absence of magnetic field. The celebrated Haldane model is the first example of QAH effect, but difficult to realize. Here, we predict the two-dimensional single-atomic-layer V2O3 with a honeycomb-Kagome structure is a QAH insulator with a large band gap (large than 0.1 eV) and a high ferromagnetic Curie temperature (about 900 K). Combining the first-principle calculations with the effective Hamiltonian analysis, we find that the spin-majority dxy and dyz orbitals of V atoms on the honeycomb lattice form a massless Dirac cone near the Fermi level which becomes massive when the on-site spin-orbit coupling is included. Interestingly, we find that the large band gap is caused by a cooperative effect of electron correlation and spin-orbit coupling. Both first-principle calculations and the effective Hamiltonian analysis confirm that 2D V2O3 has a non-zero Chern number (i.e., one). Our work paves a new direction towards realizing the QAH effect at room temperature.
We propose to engineer time-reversal-invariant topological insulators in two-dimensional (2D) crystals of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). We note that, at low doping, semiconducting TMDCs under shear strain will develop spin-polarized Landau levels residing in different valleys. We argue that gaps between Landau levels in the range of $10-100$ Kelvin are within experimental reach. In addition, we point out that a superlattice arising from a Moire pattern can lead to topologically non-trivial subbands. As a result, the edge transport becomes quantized, which can be probed in multi-terminal devices made using strained 2D crystals and/or heterostructures. The strong $d$ character of valence and conduction bands may also allow for the investigation of the effects of electron correlations on the topological phases.
Based on first-principles calculations, we have found a family of two-dimensional (2D) transition-metal chalcogenides MX$_5$ (M = Zr, Hf and X = S, Se and Te) can host quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect. The molecular dynamics (MD) simulation indicate that they are all thermal-dynamically stable at room temperature, the largest band gap is 0.19 eV. We have investigated the electronic and topological properties and they have very similar properties. For the single-layer ZrX$_5$, they are all gapless semimetals without consideration of spin-orbit coupling (SOC). The consideration of SOC will result in insulating phases with band gaps of 49.5 meV (direct), 0.18 eV (direct) and 0.13 eV (indirect) for ZrS$_5$, ZrSe$_5$ to ZrTe$_5$, respectively. The evolution of Wannier charge centers (WCC) and edge states confirm they are all QSH insulators. The mechanisms for QSH effect in ZrX$_5$ originate from the special nonsymmorphic space group features. In addition, the QSH state of ZrS$_5$ survives at a large range of strain as long as the interchain coupling is not strong enough to reverse the band ordering. The single-layer ZrS$_5$ will occur a TI-to-semimetal (metal) or metal-to-semimetal transition under certain strain. The realization of pure MX$_5$ monolayer should be readily obtained via mechanical exfoliation methods, thus holding great promise for nanoscale device applications and stimulating further efforts on transition metal (TM) based QSH materials.