Impact of electron correlations on the nonlinear Edelstein effect

Nonlinear spintronics, which combines nonlinear dynamics with spintronics, opens a new route for controlling spin and spin dynamics beyond conventional spintronics based on linear responses. Electron correlations can lead to a large nonlinear response and thus may play a key role in nonlinear spintronics. This paper focuses on the nonlinear Edelstein effect (NEE) and examines the impact of electron correlations on the NEE through numerical calculations on a Hubbard model. We find that electron correlations can either enhance or suppress the nonlinear response. Specifically, the enhancement and suppression are due to the real and imaginary components of self-energy, respectively. In addition, the NEE is closely related to photomagnetic and optomagnetic effects. Our findings demonstrate that electron correlations can either enhance or suppress the optical spin injection, depending on light frequencies, whereas always strengthening the inverse Faraday effect.