Unconventional Fermi surface spin textures in the Bi_xPb_{1-x}/Ag(111) surface alloy

Abstract

The Fermi and Rashba energies of surface states in the Bi_xPb_{1-x}/Ag(111) alloy can be tuned simultaneously by changing the composition parameter x. We report on unconventional Fermi surface spin textures observed by spin and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy {that are correlated with a topological transition of the Fermi surface occurring at x=0.5. We show that the surface states remain fully spin polarized upon alloying and that the spin polarization vectors are approximately tangential to the constant energy contours. We discuss the implications of the topological transition for the transport of spin.

5 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Rashba type spin-orbit splitting of quantum well states in ultrathin Pb films
• Topological Change of the Fermi Surface in Low Density Rashba Gases: Application to Superconductivity
• Electron-phonon effects on spin-orbit split bands of two dimensional systems
• Intrinsic spin-Hall accumulation in honeycomb lattices: Band structure effects