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Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 096802 (2009) [4 pages]

Nondegenerate Metallic States on Bi(114): A One-Dimensional Topological Metal

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J. W. Wells1,2, J. H. Dil3,4, F. Meier3,4, J. Lobo-Checa3,4,5, V. N. Petrov6, J. Osterwalder3, M. M. Ugeda7,8, I. Fernandez-Torrente7, J. I. Pascual7, E. D. L. Rienks1, M. F. Jensen1, and Ph. Hofmann1
1Institute for Storage Ring Facilities (ISA) and Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO), University of Aarhus, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
2Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway
3Physik-Institut, Winterthurerstr. 190, Universitat Zürich-Irchel, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland
4Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
5Departement Physik, Universität Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 82, 4056 Basel, Switzerland
6St. Petersburg Technical University, 29 Polytechnicheskaya Street, 195251 St Petersburg, Russia
7Institut für Experimentalphysik, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
8Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, E-28049-Madrid, Spain

Received 11 December 2008; published 2 March 2009

See accompanying Physics Synopsis

The (114) surface of the semimetal Bi is found to support a quasi-one-dimensional, metallic surface state. As required by symmetry, the state is degenerate along the Γ̅ -Y̅ line of the surface Brillouin zone with a highest binding energy of ≈150  meV. In the Γ̅ -X̅ direction the degeneracy is lifted by the strong spin-orbit splitting in Bi, as directly shown by spin-resolved photoemission. This results in a Fermi contour consisting of two closely separated, parallel lines of opposite spin direction. It is argued that similar states on related insulators would give rise to a one-dimensional quantum spin Hall effect.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.096802
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.096802
PACS:
73.20.−r, 71.18.+y, 72.25.−b, 73.43.−f
 
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