Hidden spin-orbital texture at the $$\overline{{{\Gamma }}}$$ Γ ¯ -located valence band maximum of a transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductor

Oliver J. Clark (), Oliver Dowinton, Mohammad Saeed Bahramy and Jaime Sánchez-Barriga
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Oliver J. Clark: Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Elektronenspeicherring BESSY II
Oliver Dowinton: University of Manchester
Mohammad Saeed Bahramy: University of Manchester
Jaime Sánchez-Barriga: Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Elektronenspeicherring BESSY II

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Finding stimuli capable of driving an imbalance of spin-polarised electrons within a solid is the central challenge in the development of spintronic devices. However, without the aid of magnetism, routes towards this goal are highly constrained with only a few suitable pairings of compounds and driving mechanisms found to date. Here, through spin- and angle-resolved photoemission along with density functional theory, we establish how the p-derived bulk valence bands of semiconducting 1T-HfSe2 possess a local, ground-state spin texture spatially confined within each Se-sublayer due to strong sublayer-localised electric dipoles orientated along the c-axis. This hidden spin-polarisation manifests in a ‘coupled spin-orbital texture’ with in-equivalent contributions from the constituent p-orbitals. While the overall spin-orbital texture for each Se sublayer is in strict adherence to time-reversal symmetry (TRS), spin-orbital mixing terms with net polarisations at time-reversal invariant momenta are locally maintained. These apparent TRS-breaking contributions dominate, and can be selectively tuned between with a choice of linear light polarisation, facilitating the observation of pronounced spin-polarisations at the Brillouin zone centre for all kz. We discuss the implications for the generation of spin-polarised populations from 1T-structured transition metal dichalcogenides using a fixed energy, linearly polarised light source.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31539-2

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