English

Symmetry-isolated magnetoelectric electro-optic effects in noncentrosymmetric metals

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2026-07-19 v1 Materials Science

Abstract

We classify the symmetry-constrained forms of the Berry curvature dipole D\mathbf{D}, gyrotropic magnetic tensor K\mathbf{K}, and magnetoelectric electro-optic (EO) tensor G\mathbf{G}, which describe metallic optical and EO effects in time-reversal symmetric, noncentrosymmetric metals. We identify 11 space groups (SGs) in which D\mathbf{D} and K\mathbf{K} vanish by symmetry while G\mathbf{G} remains allowed, thereby providing a more direct route to observing the recently predicted magnetoelectric EO effects associated with G\mathbf{G}. First-principles based calculations confirm that D\mathbf{D} and K\mathbf{K} vanish for representative materials, while G\mathbf{G} remains allowed and tunable via Fermi level shifting. We further show that the choices of SG and experimental configuration provide complementary paths for isolating G\mathbf{G}-driven EO effects, including cases where D\mathbf{D} and K\mathbf{K} are also symmetry-allowed. In an oblique-incidence geometry, the D\mathbf{D}-driven response produces a helicity-even absorption or gain correction, whereas the G\mathbf{G}-driven response couples the ss and pp optical sectors and produces a bias-induced circular dichroism with a characteristic sinθcosθ\sin\theta\cos\theta angular dependence. This provides a direct experimental route for separating the D\mathbf{D}- and G\mathbf{G}-driven EO signatures in noncentrosymmetric metals.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.17392,
  title  = {Symmetry-isolated magnetoelectric electro-optic effects in noncentrosymmetric metals},
  author = {C. O. Ascencio and D. J. P. de Sousa and Seungjun Lee and Tony Low},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.17392},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

13 pages, 4 figures