Abstract
Gold surfaces host special electronic states that have been understood as a prototype of Shockley surface states. These surface states are commonly employed to benchmark the capability of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and scanning tunnelling spectroscopy. Here we show that these Shockley surface states can be reinterpreted as topologically derived surface states (TDSSs) of a topological insulator (TI), a recently discovered quantum state. Based on band structure calculations, the Z2-type invariants of gold can be well-defined to characterize a TI. Further, our ARPES measurement validates TDSSs by detecting the dispersion of unoccupied surface states. The same TDSSs are also recognized on surfaces of other well-known noble metals (for example, silver, copper, platinum and palladium), which shines a new light on these long-known surface states.
Highlights
Gold surfaces host special electronic states that have been understood as a prototype of Shockley surface states
As a result of inversion symmetry breaking on the surface, these SSs exhibit Rashba-type[16] spin splitting with spinmomentum locking at the Fermi surface[2,15,17,18], which is essential for spintronic devices[19]
We find that these famous Shockley SSs are topological SS (TSS), which originate from the inverted bulk band structure
Summary
Gold surfaces host special electronic states that have been understood as a prototype of Shockley surface states.
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