Scientific Highlights

Tailoring Novel Superconductivity

The Angle Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements performed on 2DEL at STO surface revealed that, at low carrier density, electrons are always accompanied by a quantized dynamic lattice deformation. Together with the electron, these phonon-cloud formed a new composite quasiparticle called Fröhlich polaron.

Schematic of a Weyl semimetal with spin polarized Fermi arcs on its surfaces connecting the projections of two Weyl nodes with opposite chirality.

Observation of Fermi-Arc Spin Texture in TaAs

The study of nontrivial topological semimetals (TSM) is an emerging subject, providing a new frontier in topological aspects beyond insulators. Here, we have investigated the spin texture of surface Fermi arcs in the recently discovered Weyl semimetal TaAs using spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The experimental results demonstrate that the Fermi arcs are spin polarized. The measured spin texture fulfills the requirement of mirror and time-reversal symmetries and is well reproduced by our first-principles calculations, which gives strong evidence for the topologically nontrivial Weyl semimetal state in TaAs. The consistency between the experimental and calculated results further confirms the distribution of chirality of the Weyl nodes determined by first principles calculations.

Figure caption: Sketch of the 3D Fermi surface of d-AlNiCo (left) and its experimental cross-sections in the indicated planes (right) showing vanishing pseudogap in the quasiperiodic directions.

Fermi states and anisotropy of Brillouin zone scattering in the decagonal Al–Ni–Co quasicrystal

Quasicrystals (QCs) are intermetallic alloys where excellent long-range order coexists with lack of translational symmetry in one or more dimensions. These materials have a high potential in application as a material for a solar cells, hydrogen storage applications, heat insulating layers, and others.

Schematics of the iMott spin detector attached to an ARPES analyzer.

Concept of a multichannel spin-resolving electron analyzer based on Mott scattering

The spin of electron plays a crucial role in many physical phenomena, ranging from the obvious example of magnetism, via novel materials for spintronics applications, to high-temperature superconductivity. Spin- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (SARPES) gives the most direct access to the spin aspects of the electronic structure, but the one-channel detection principle of all presently available SARPES spectrometers severely limits their efficiency. A team of Swiss and Russian scientists has developed a revolutionary concept of a multichannel electron spin detector based on Mott scattering as the spin selective process and imaging-type electron optics.

(a) Rhombohedral distortion of the pseudocubic La1−xSrxMnO3 lattice; (b) GGA+U theoretical FS; (c,d) Experimental FS cross-sections, with the shadow contours manifesting the lattice distortion.

Fermi Surface of Three-Dimensional La1−xSrxMnO3 Explored by Soft-X-Ray ARPES: Rhombohedral Lattice Distortion and its Effect on Magnetoresistance

A research team led by scientists from the Swiss Light Source has for the first time established three-dimensional (3D) electronic structure of the perovskite compound La1−xSrxMnO3 connected with its colossal magnetoresistance. Instrumental for this study has been the use of the new experimental technique of soft-x-ray ARPES, available at the ADRESS beamline, with its intrinsically sharp definition of 3D electron momentum.