1. Spin-Degenerate Bulk Bands and Topological Surface States of RuO2
- Author
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Osumi, T., Yamauchi, K., Souma, S., Shubhankar, P., Honma, A., Nakayama, K., Ozawa, K., Kitamura, M., Horiba, K., Kumigashira, H., Bigi, C., Bertran, F., Oguchi, T., Takahashi, T., Maeno, Y., and Sato, T.
- Subjects
Condensed Matter - Materials Science ,Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics - Abstract
Altermagnets are a novel platform to realize exotic electromagnetic properties distinct from those of conventional ferromagnets and antiferromagnets. We report results of micro-focused angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) on RuO2, of which altermagnetic nature has been under fierce debate. We have elucidated the band structure of the (100), (110) and (101) surfaces of a bulk single crystal. We found that, irrespective of the surface orientation, the experimental band structures obtained by ARPES commonly show a semi-quantitative agreement with the bulk-band calculation for the nonmagnetic phase, but display a severe disagreement with that for the antiferromagnetic phase. Moreover, spin-resolved ARPES signifies a negligible spin polarization for the bulk bands. These results suggest the absence of antiferromagnetism and altermagnetic spin splitting. Furthermore, we identified a flat surface band and a dispersive one near the Fermi level at the (100)/(110) and (101) surfaces, respectively, both of which are attributed to the topological surface states associated with the bulk Dirac nodal lines. The present ARPES results suggest that the crystal-orientation-dependent topological surface/interface states need to be taken into account to properly capture the transport and catalytic characteristics of RuO2., Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures
- Published
- 2025