No Arabic abstract
Surface alloys are highly flexible materials for tailoring the spin-dependent properties of surfaces. Here, we study the spin-dependent band structure of a DyAg$_2$ surface alloy formed on an Ag(111) crystal. We find a significant exchange spin-splitting of the localized Dy 4f states pointing to a ferromagnetic coupling between the localized Dy moments at $40,$K. The magnetic coupling between these moments is mediated by an indirect, RKKY-like exchange coupling via the spin-polarized electrons of the hole-like Dy-Ag hybrid surface state.
We study the properties of the surface states in three-dimensional topological insulators in the presence of a ferromagnetic exchange field. We demonstrate that for layered materials like Bi$_2$Se$_3$ the surface states on the top surface behave qualitatively different than the surface states at the side surfaces. We show that the group velocity of the surface states can be tuned by the direction and strength of the exchange field. If the exchange field becomes larger than the bulk gap of the material, a phase transition into a topologically nontrivial semimetallic state occurs. In particular, the material becomes a Weyl semimetal, if the exchange field possesses a non-zero component perpendicular to the layers. Associated with the Weyl semimetallic state we show that Fermi arcs appear at the surface. Under certain circumstances either one-dimensional or even two-dimensional surface flat bands can appear. We show that the appearence of these flat bands is related to chiral symmetries of the system and can be understood in terms of topological winding numbers. In contrast to previous systems that have been suggested to possess surface flat bands, the present system has a much larger energy scale, allowing the observation of surface flat bands at room temperature. The flat bands are tunable in the sense that they can be turned on or off by rotation of the ferromagnetic exchange field. Our findings are supported by both numerical results on a finite system as well as approximate analytical results.
In this paper, we investigate theoretically the spin-orbit torque as well as the Gilbert damping for a two band model of a 2D helical surface state with a Ferromagnetic (FM) exchange coupling. We decompose the density matrix into the Fermi sea and Fermi surface components and obtain their contributions to the electronic transport as well as the spin-orbit torque (SOT). Furthermore, we obtain the expression for the Gilbert damping due to the surface state of a 3D Topological Insulator (TI) and predicted its dependence on the direction of the magnetization precession axis.
The discovery of topological insulator phase has ignited massive research interests in novel quantum materials. Topological insulators with superconductivity further invigorate the importance of materials providing the platform to study the interplay between these two unique states. However, the candidates of such materials are rare. Here, we report a systematic angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) study of a superconducting material CaBi2 [Tc = 2 K], corroborated by the first principles calculations. Our study reveals the presence of Dirac cones with a topological protection in this system. Systematic topological analysis based on symmetry indicator shows the presence of weak topological indices in this material. Furthermore, our transport measurements show the presence of large magnetoresistance in this compound. Our results indicate that CaBi2 could potentially provide a material platform to study the interplay between superconductivity and topology.
X-ray measurements reveal a crystalline monolayer at the surface of the eutectic liquid Au_{82}Si_{18}, at temperatures above the alloys melting point. Surface-induced atomic layering, the hallmark of liquid metals, is also found below the crystalline monolayer. The layering depth, however, is threefold greater than that of all liquid metals studied to date. The crystallinity of the surface monolayer is notable, considering that AuSi does not form stable bulk crystalline phases at any concentration and temperature and that no crystalline surface phase has been detected thus far in any pure liquid metal or nondilute alloy. These results are discussed in relation to recently suggested models of amorphous alloys.
Spin-split Rashba bands have been exploited to efficiently control the spin degree of freedom of moving electrons, which possesses a great potential in frontier applications of designing spintronic devices and processing spin-based information. Given that intrinsic breaking of inversion symmetry and sizeable spin-orbit interaction, two-dimensional (2D) surface alloys formed by heavy metal elements exhibit a pronounced Rashba-type spin splitting of the surface states. Here, we have revealed the essential role of atomic orbital symmetry in the hexagonally warped Rashba spin-split surface state of $sqrt{3}timessqrt{3} R30^{circ}$ BiCu$_{2}$ monatomic alloy by scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) and density functional theory (DFT). From $mathrm{d}I/mathrm{d}U$ spectra and calculated band structures, three hole-like Rashba-split bands hybridized from distinct orbital symmetries have been identified in the unoccupied energy region. Because of the hexagonally deformed Fermi surface, quasi-particle interference (QPI) mappings have resolved scattering channels opened from interband transitions of textit{p$_{x},$p$_{y}$}($m_{j}=1/2$) band. In contrast to the textit{s,p$_{z}$}-derived band, the hexagonal warping predominately is accompanied by substantial out-of-plane spin polarization $S_{z}$ up to 24% in the dispersion of textit{p$_{x}$,p$_{y}$}($m_{j}=1/2$) band with an in-plane orbital symmetry.