Optical response of relativistic electrons in the polar BiTeI semiconductor

The transitions between the spin-split bands by spin-orbit interaction are relevant to many novel phenomena such as the resonant dynamical magnetoelectric effect and the spin Hall effect. We perform optical spectroscopy measurements combined with first-principles calculations to study these transitions in the recently discovered giant bulk Rashba spin-splitting system BiTeI. Several novel features are observed in the optical spectra of the material including a sharp edge singularity due to the reduced dimensionality of the joint density of states and a systematic doping dependence of the intraband transitions between the Rashba-split branches. These confirm the bulk nature of the Rashba-type splitting in BiTeI and manifest the relativistic nature of the electron dynamics in a solid.