Three-Dimensional Spin Rotations at the Fermi Surface of a Strongly Spin-Orbit Coupled Surface System

Abstract

The spin texture of the metallic two-dimensional electron system (root3 x root3)-Au/Ge(111) is revealed by fully three-dimensional spin-resolved photoemission, as well as by density functional calculations. The large hexagonal Fermi surface, generated by the Au atoms, shows a significant splitting due to spin-orbit interactions. The planar components of the spin exhibit helical character, accompanied by a strong out-of-plane spin component with alternating signs along the six Fermi surface sections. Moreover, in-plane spin rotations towards a radial direction are observed close to the hexagon corners. Such a threefold-symmetric spin pattern is not described by the conventional Rashba model. Instead, it reveals an interplay with Dresselhaus-like spin-orbit effects as a result of the crystalline anisotropies.

5 pages, 4 figures, accepted at Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (6)

• Orbital mechanisms of electron spin manipulation by an electric field
• Silicon surface with giant spin-splitting
• Direct Measurement of the Out-of-Plane Spin Texture in the Dirac Cone Surface State of a Topological Insulator
• Higher-order contributions to the Rashba-Bychkov effect with application to Bi/Ag(111) surface alloy
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• In-plane Hall effect in two-dimensional helical electron systems
• Structure and electronic properties of the ($\sqrt{3}\times \sqrt{3}$)$R30^{\circ }$ SnAu${}_2$/Au(111) surface alloy
• Interband spin-orbit coupling between anti-parallel spin states in Pb quantum well states
• The Two-Band Luttinger Liquid with Spin-Orbit Coupling: Applications to Monatomic Chains on Surfaces
• Ab initio k.p theory of spin-momentum locking: Application to topological surface states
• The anomalous spin texture as the probe for interactions in $B{i}_{2-y}S{b}_{y}S{e}_{x}T{e}_{3-x}$
• Exact results relating spin-orbit interactions in two dimensional strongly correlated systems
• Non-orthogonal Spin-Momentum Locking
• Classification of spin Hall effect in two-dimensional systems