Probing mirror anomaly and classes of Dirac semimetals with circular dichroism

We theoretically investigate the optical activity of three-dimensional Dirac semimetals (DSMs) using circular dichroism (CD). We show that DSMs in the presence of a magnetic field in any one of the mirror-symmetric planes of the materials exhibit a notable dichroic behavior. In particular, for diffe...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Abhirup Roy Karmakar, S. Nandy, G. P. Das, Kush Saha
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2021-03-01
Series:Physical Review Research
Online Access:http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.013230
Description
Summary:We theoretically investigate the optical activity of three-dimensional Dirac semimetals (DSMs) using circular dichroism (CD). We show that DSMs in the presence of a magnetic field in any one of the mirror-symmetric planes of the materials exhibit a notable dichroic behavior. In particular, for different orientations of the light field with respect to the mirror-symmetric plane, the CD in type-II DSMs can detect the presence of mirror anomaly by showing sharply distinct patterns at the mirror-symmetric angle. Interestingly, we find that the CD can also distinguish type-II DSMs having only one Dirac point at a time-reversal invariant momentum from type-I DSMs with a pair of Dirac points on the rotation axis of the crystals.
ISSN:2643-1564