Journal Article

Light-induced giant enhancement of nonreciprocal transport at KTaO 3 -based interfaces

Niu, Wei, Gao, Rongzheng, Shen, Jie, Li, Guoan, Song, Anke, Zhang, Xu, Zhang, Shuai, Zhang, Haijun, Lou, Wenkai, Chang, Kai, Wang, Xuefeng, Fei, Fucong, Song, Fengqi, Tai, Yilin, Zhu, Tongshuai, Chen, Yequan, Zhang, Rong, Zhang, Chong, Ge, Binghui, Chen, Zhongqiang

2024

Overview

Nonlinear transport is a unique functionality of noncentrosymmetric systems, which reflects profound physics, such as spin-orbit interaction, superconductivity and band geometry. However, it remains highly challenging to enhance the nonreciprocal transport for promising rectification devices. Here, we observe a light-induced giant enhancement of nonreciprocal transport at the superconducting and epitaxial CaZrO /KTaO (111) interfaces. The nonreciprocal transport coefficient undergoes a giant increase with three orders of magnitude up to 10 A T . Furthermore, a strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling effective field of 14.7 T is achieved with abundant high-mobility photocarriers under ultraviolet illumination, which accounts for the giant enhancement of nonreciprocal transport coefficient. Our first-principles calculations further disclose the stronger Rashba spin-orbit coupling strength and the longer relaxation time in the photocarrier excitation process, bridging the light-property quantitative relationship. Our work provides an alternative pathway to boost nonreciprocal transport in noncentrosymmetric systems and facilitates the promising applications in opto-rectification devices and spin-orbitronic devices.