Lee Gyubin, Koo Jahyun, Lee Yeonghoon, Cha Jaehun, Hyun Jounghoon, Han Kimoon, Lim Chan-Young, Denlinger Jonathan D, Kim Sunghun, Kim Sung Wng, Kim Yeongkwan
Department of Physics, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
Quantum Technology Institute, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejeon 34113, Republic of Korea.
Nano Lett. 2024 Oct 30;24(43):13727-13732. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c03802. Epub 2024 Oct 18.
Rashba states have been actively revisited as a platform for advanced applications such as spintronics and topological quantum computation. Yet, access to the Rashba state is restricted to the specific material sets, and the methodology to control the Rashba state is not established. Here, we report the Rashba states on the (001) surface of KZnBi, a 3D Dirac semimetal. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and first-principles calculations, we investigated the evolution of Rashba states under different surface conditions controlled by alkali metal deposition. We observed that restoring surface ordering enables a Rashba state, which is absent in freshly cleaved surfaces. Interestingly, we were able to modify the dispersion of the Rashba state from an ordinary parabolic dispersion to a linearly dispersing Dirac-like state by additional alkali-metal deposition. Our findings provide a methodology for engineering the properties of Rashba states for advanced applications and redefine topological systems as generic hosts of Rashba states.
