SKM 2023 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 12: Nonequilibrium Quantum Many-Body Systems I (joint session TT/DY)

DY 12.11: Talk

Tuesday, March 28, 2023, 12:30–12:45, HSZ 204

Influence of phononic dissipation on impact ionization processes in a photodriven Mott insulator — •Paolo Gazzaneo, Tommaso Maria Mazzocchi, Jan Lotze, and Enrico Arrigoni — Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics, Graz University of Technology, 8010 Graz, Austria

It has been suggested that in strongly correlated materials, highly photoexcited charge carriers could use their extra energy to excite additional carriers across the Mott gap via impact ionization [1,2]. However, the influence of electron-phonon scattering on photocurrent and impact ionization in Mott photovoltaic setups is still an open question.

We address this issue in a nonequilibrium steady state study on the occurrence of impact ionization in a simplified model of a Mott photovoltaic device in presence of acoustic phonons [3], consisting of a Mott-insulating layer coupled to two wide-band fermion leads.

For a small hybridization to the leads, we obtain a peak in the photocurrent as a function of the driving frequency which can be associated with impact ionization processes, while for larger hybridizations we find a suppression of impact ionization with respect to direct photovoltaic excitations. The effect of acoustic phonons produces a slight enhancement of the photocurrent for small driving frequencies and a suppression at frequencies around the main peak at all considered hybridization strengths.
[1] E. Manousakis, Phys. Rev. B 82, 125109 (2010)
[2] J. E. Coulter et al., Phys. Rev. B 90, 165142 (2014)
[3] Gazzaneo et al., Phys. Rev. B 106, 195140 (2022)