Strongly Spin-Orbit Coupled Two-Dimensional Electron Gas Emerging near the Surface of Polar Semiconductors

We investigate the two-dimensional highly spin-polarized electron accumulation layers commonly appearing near the surface of n-type polar semiconductors BiTeX (X = I, Br, and Cl) by angular-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Because of the polarity and the strong spin-orbit interaction built in the bulk atomic configurations, the quantized conduction-band subbands show giant Rashba-type spin splitting. The characteristic 2D confinement effect is clearly observed also in the valence bands down to the binding energy of 4 eV. The X-dependent Rashba spin-orbit coupling is directly estimated from the observed spin-split subbands, which roughly scales with the inverse of the band-gap size in BiTeX. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.107204