Microscopic origin of the relativistic splitting of surface states

Abstract

Spin-orbit splitting of surface states is analyzed within and beyond the Rashba model using as examples the (111) surfaces of noble metals, Ag2Bi surface alloy, and topological insulator Bi2Se3. The ab initio analysis of relativistic velocity proves the Rashba model to be fundamentally inapplicable to real crystals. The splitting is found to be primarily due to a spin-orbit induced in-plane modification of the wave function, namely to its effect on the nonrelativistic Hamiltonian. The usual Rashba splitting -- given by charge distribution asymmetry -- is an order of magnitude smaller.

6 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Strong spin-orbit splitting on Bi surfaces
• Silicon surface with giant spin-splitting
• Ideal two-dimensional electron systems with a giant Rashba-type spin splitting in real materials: surfaces of bismuth tellurohalides
• Giant ambipolar Rashba effect in a semiconductor: BiTeI
• Rashba split surface states in BiTeBr
• Role of d orbitals in the Rashba-type spin splitting for noble-metal surfaces

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Orbital-driven Rashba effect in a binary honeycomb monolayer AgTe
• Relativistic k.p Hamiltonians for centrosymmetric topological insulators from ab initio wave functions
• Rashba spin splitting of L-gap surface states on Ag(111) and Cu(111)
• Topologically entangled Rashba-split Shockley states on the surface of grey arsenic
• Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of two-dimensional Rashba ferromagnets
• Current-induced spin polarization at the surface of metallic films: a theorem and an ab initio calculation
• Quantum spin Hall insulators in centrosymmetric thin films composed from topologically trivial BiTeI trilayers
• Giant Rashba splitting of quasi-1D surface states on Bi/InAs(110)-(2$\times$1)
• Semi-realistic tight-binding model for spin-orbit torques
• Spin Filtering via Resonant Reflection of Relativistic Surface States
• Ab initio k.p theory of spin-momentum locking: Application to topological surface states
• Rashba-Dirac cones at the tungsten surface: Insights from a tight-binding model and thin film subband structure