Direct observation of spin-polarized bulk bands in an inversion-symmetric semiconductor
By J. M. Riley, F. Mazzola, M. Dendzik, M. Michiardi, T. Takayama, L. Bawden, C. Granerød, M. Leandersson, T. Balasubramanian, M. Hoesch and 7 more. Nature Physics, 2014
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The coupling between spin, valley and layer degrees of freedom in transition-metal dichalcogenides is shown to give rise to spin-polarized electron states, providing opportunities to create and manipulate spin and valley polarizations in bulk solids. Methods to generate spin-polarized electronic states in non-magnetic solids are strongly desired to enable all-electrical manipulation of electron spins for new quantum devices1. This is generally accepted to require breaking global structural inversion symmetry1,2,3,4,5. In contrast, here we report the observation from spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of spin-polarized bulk states in the centrosymmetric transition-metal dichalcogenide WSe2. Mediated by a lack of inversion symmetry in constituent structural units of the bulk crystal where the electronic states are localized6, we show how spin splittings up to ∼0.5 eV result, with a spin texture that is strongly modulated in both real and momentum space. Through this, our study provides direct experimental evidence for a putative locking of the spin with the layer and valley pseudospins in transition-metal dichalcogenides7,8, of key importance for using these compounds in proposed valleytronic devices.
Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Condensed Matter Physics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fa526430d2fcb7aa676cf0abbb9285858fcc9ef3
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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
In Condensed Matter Physics
Citations in the corpus
- Optical properties of atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides: observations and puzzles (2016, background): “[30] Riley JM, Mazzola F, Dendzik M, Michiardi M, Takayama T, Bawden L, Granerød C, Leandersson M, Balasubramanian T, Hoesch M, Kim TK, Takagi H, et al.”
- Angle-resolved photoemission studies of quantum materials (2020, positive): “This has been invoked to explain measurements of “hidden spin-polarization,” in which the polarization originates from local inversion symmetry breaking within a unit cell despite the entirety of the unit cell being inversion symmetric (Gotlieb et al., 2018; Riley et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2014c).”