Achieving a large spin splitting is highly desirable for spintronic devices, which often requires breaking of the inversion symmetry. However, many atomically thin films are centrosymmetric, making them unsuitable for spintronic applications. Here, we report a strategy to achieve inversion symmetry breaking from a centrosymmetric transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) bilayer PtTe2, leading to a giant Rashba spin splitting. Specifically, the thermal annealing turns one layer of PtTe2 sample into a transition metal monochalcogenide (TMMC) PtTe through Te extraction, thus forming PtTe/PtTe2 heterostructure with inversion symmetry breaking. In the naturally-formed PtTe/PtTe2 heterostructure, we observe a giant Rashba spin splitting with Rashba coefficient of αR = 1.8 eV⋅A˚, as revealed by spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements. Our work demonstrates a convenient and effective pathway for achieving pronounced Rashba splitting in centrosymmetric TMDC thin films by creating TMMC/TMDC heterostructure, thereby extending their potential applications to spintronics.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2504.06558,
title = {Giant Rashba splitting in PtTe/PtTe$_2$ heterostructure},
author = {Runfa Feng and Yang Zhang and Jiaheng Li and Qian Li and Changhua Bao and Hongyun Zhang and Wanying Chen and Xiao Tang and Ken Yaegashi and Katsuaki Sugawara and Takafumi Sato and Wenhui Duan and Pu Yu and Shuyun Zhou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.06558},
year = {2025}
}