Nonlinear optical response from quantum kinetic equation

Abstract: Motivated by the nonlinear Hall effect observed in topological semimetals, we studied the photocurrent by the quantum kinetic equation. We recovered the shift current and injection current discovered by Sipe et al., and the nonlinear Hall current induced by Berry curvature dipole (BCD) proposed by Inti Sodemann and Liang Fu. Especially, we further proposed that 3-form tensor can also induce photocurrent, in addition to the Berry curvature and BCD. This work will supplement the existing mechanisms for photocurrent. In contrast to the shift current induced by shift vector, all photocurrents induced by gradient/curl of Berry curvature, and high rank tensor require circularly polarized light and topologically non-trivial band structure, viz. non-vanishing Berry curvature.