Skew-scattering Pockels effect and metallic electro-optics in gapped bilayer graphene

Abstract: We argue that a range of strong metallic electro-optic (EO) effects can be naturally realized from non-Drude dynamics of free carriers in metals. In particular, in clean metals we identify skew-scattering and a "Snap" (third-order derivative of velocity) dominating the Pockels and Kerr EO behavior of metals in the clean limit. Strikingly, we find that both Pockels and Kerr EO in metals play critical roles in metallic EO phenomena: for instance, metallic Pockels and Kerr EO effectively compete to produce a field-activated birefringence that is non-reciprocal in applied DC fields. Similarly, both contribute to sizeable field-induced modulations to transmission and reflection across a range of frequencies. We find metallic EO effects can be naturally realized in layered 2D materials such as gapped bilayer graphene producing pronounced values of EO coefficients in the terahertz -- an interesting new metallic platform for terahertz electro-optic modulation.