Spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is used to reveal that a large spin polarization is observable in the bulk centrosymmetric transition metal dichalcogenide MoS2. It is found that the measured spin polarization can be reversed by changing the handedness of incident circularly-polarized light. Calculations based on a three-step model of photoemission show that the valley and layer-locked spin-polarized electronic states can be selectively addressed by circularly-polarized light, therefore providing a novel route to probe these hidden spin-polarized states in inversion-symmetric systems as predicted by Zhang et al. [Nature Physics 10, 387 (2014)].
@article{arxiv.1701.07109,
title = {Selective probing of hidden spin-polarized states in inversion-symmetric bulk MoS2},
author = {E. Razzoli and T. Jaouen and M. -L. Mottas and B. Hildebrand and G. Monney and A. Pisoni and S. Muff and M. Fanciulli and N. C. Plumb and V. A. Rogalev and V. N. Strocov and J. Mesot and M. Shi and J. H. Dil and H. Beck and P. Aebi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1701.07109},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
6 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters