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Updated: Mar 27, 2026

Experimental Methods for Spin- and Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy Combined with Polarization-Variable Laser
Published on: June 28, 2018
Optical Generation of Hot Spin-Polarized Electrons from a Ferromagnetic Two-Dimensional Electron Gas
Martin Ellguth1, Christian Tusche1, Jürgen Kirschner1,2
1Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik, Weinberg 2, 06120 Halle, Germany.
Abstract:
Linearly polarized light with an energy of 3.1 eV has been used to excite highly spin-polarized electrons in an ultrathin film of face-centered-tetragonal cobalt to majority-spin quantum well states (QWS) derived from an sp band at the border of the Brillouin zone. The spin-selective excitation process has been studied by spin- and momentum-resolved two-photon photoemission. Analyzing the photoemission patterns in two-dimensional momentum planes, we find that the optically driven transition from the valence band to the QWS acts almost exclusively on majority-spin electrons. The mechanism providing the high spin polarization is discussed by the help of a density-functional theory calculation. Additionally, a sizable effect of spin-orbit coupling for the QWS is evidenced.
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