Nonlinear optical Hall effect of few-layered NbSe2

NbSe2 is one of metallic two-dimensional (2D) transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) materials. Because of broken crystal inversion symmetry, large spin splitting is induced by Ising-type spin-orbit coupling in oddnumber-layered NbSe2, but absent for even-number-layered NbSe2 with the inversion symmetry. In this paper we numerically calculate nonlinear optical charge and spin Hall conductivities of few-layered NbSe2 based on an effective tight-binding model which includes d(z2), d(x2-y2), and d(xy) orbitals of Nb atoms. We show that the nonlinear optical Hall conductivity for the second harmonic generation (SHG) process has a nonvanishing value in odd-number-layered NbSe2. Also, we provide a nonlinear optical selection rule in few-layered NbSe2 and their polarization dependencies. Furthermore, for the even-number-layered case, the nonlinear optical Hall currents can be generated by applying electric fields which break inversion symmetry. We also discuss that the nonlinear optical Hall effect is expected to occur in TMDC materials in general. Thus, our results will serve to design potential opt-spintronics devices based on 2D materials to generate the spin Hall current by SHG.

Automated summary

In this paper, we numerically calculate the nonlinear optical Hall conductivity and selection rules in NbSe2, a metallic two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenide material. We show that odd-number-layered NbSe2 exhibits a nonvanishing nonlinear optical Hall conductivity for second harmonic generation, while even-number-layered NbSe2 can generate nonlinear optical Hall currents by breaking inversion symmetry with applied electric fields. These findings have implications for the design of opt-spintronics devices based on 2D materials.