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Measuring non-abelian Berry curvature in strained gallium arsenide using electron-hole collisions

ORAL

Abstract

Berry curvature is a key quantity in characterizing the band topology of materials [1]. However, measuring Berry curvature locally in the Brillouin zone (BZ) remains challenging due to decoherence from rapid scattering processes. High-order sideband generation (HSG) avoids this difficulty by using a strong terahertz field to drive electron-hole pairs to collision before scattering. Polarimetry of sidebands has been shown to be sensitive to the local Berry curvature and the Bloch wavefunctions of semiconductors [2,3]. In strained gallium arsenide (GaAs), there is a non-abelian Berry curvature in the valence bands near the BZ center. Here we present a measurement of this non-abelian Berry curvature in GaAs using HSG. We also discuss future applications of this method to characterizing topological materials.

References
[1]
C. Nayak, et al. , "Non-Abelian anyons and topological quantum computing," Rev. Mod. Phys. 80, 1083-, 2008.

[2]
H. B. Banks, Q. Wu, D. C. Valovcin, et al. , "Dynamical Birefringence: Electron-Hole Recollisions as Probes of Berry Curvature," Phys. Rev. X 7, 041042, 2019.

[3]
J. B. Costello, S. D. O'Hara, Q. Wu, et al., Manuscript in Preparation.

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Presenters

  • Joseph Costello

    Physics Department and Institute for Terahertz Science and Technology, University of California, Santa Barbara

Authors

  • Joseph Costello

    Physics Department and Institute for Terahertz Science and Technology, University of California, Santa Barbara

  • Seamus O'Hara

    Physics Department and Institute for Terahertz Science and Technology, University of California, Santa Barbara

  • Qile Wu

    Physics Department and Institute for Terahertz Science and Technology, University of California, Santa Barbara

  • Loren Pfeiffer

    Princeton University, Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM), Princeton University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Electrical Engineering, Princeton, Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton

  • Ken W. West

    Princeton University, Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM), Princeton University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Electrical Engineering, Princeton, Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton

  • Mark Stephen Sherwin

    Physics Department and Institute for Terahertz Science and Technology, University of California, Santa Barbara