Unconventional Fermi surface spin textures in the<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mtext>Bi</mml:mtext></mml:mrow><mml:mi>x</mml:mi></mml:msub><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mtext>Pb</mml:mtext></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>1</mml:mn><mml:mo>−</mml:mo><mml:mi>x</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mo>/</mml:mo><mml:mtext>Ag</mml:mtext><mml:mrow><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:mrow><mml:mn>111</mml:mn></mml:mrow><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:…

Fabian Meier, В. Н. Петров, Sebastian Guerrero, Christopher Mudry, L. Patthey, Jürg Osterwalder, J. H. Dil

Abstract

The Fermi and Rashba energies of surface states in the ${\text{Bi}}_{x}{\text{Pb}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}/\text{Ag}(111)$ 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.

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• arXiv (Cornell University) - View - PDF
• Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) - View - PDF
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• Physical Review B - View