Intrinsic and Extrinsic Photogalvanic Effects in Twisted Bilayer Graphene

The chiral lattice structure of twisted bilayer graphene with D6 symmetry allows for intrinsic photogalvanic effects only at off-normal incidence, while additional extrinsic effects are known to be induced by a substrate or a gate potential. In this Letter, we first compute the intrinsic effects and show they reverse sign at the magic angle, revealing a band inversion at the Γ point. We next consider different extrinsic effects, showing how they can be used to track the strengths of the substrate coupling or electric displacement field. We also show that the approximate particle-hole symmetry implies stringent constraints on the chemical potential dependence of all photocurrents. A detailed comparison of intrinsic vs extrinsic photocurrents therefore reveals a wealth of information about the band structure and can also serve as a benchmark to constrain the symmetry breaking patterns of correlated states. © 2024 American Physical Society.