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Reexamining circular dichroism in photoemission from a topological insulator

Ittai Sidilkover1,2, Yun Yen3,4, Sunil Wilfred D'Souza5, Jakub Schusser5, Aki Pulkkinen5, Costel R. Rotundu6,7, Makoto Hashimoto8, Donghui Liu8, Zhi-Xun Shen6,7,9 et al.

Ján Minár5, Michael Schüler3,10,*, Hadas Soifer1,2,†, and Jonathan A. Sobota6,‡

  • *Contact author: michael.schueler@psi.ch
  • †Contact author: hadassoifer@tauex.tau.ac.il
  • ‡Contact author: sobota@slac.stanford.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033027 – Published 7 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/g9d4-qls9

Abstract

The orbital angular momentum (OAM) of electron states is an essential ingredient for topological and quantum geometric quantities in solids. For example, Dirac surface states with helical spin- and orbital-angular momenta are a hallmark of a 3D topological insulator. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) with variable circular light polarization, known as circular dichroism (CD), has been assumed to be a direct probe of OAM and, by proxy, of the Berry curvature of electronic bands in energy- and momentum-space. Indeed, topological surface states have been shown to exhibit angle-dependent CD (CDAD), and more broadly, CD is often interpreted as evidence of spin-orbit coupling. Meanwhile, it is well-established that CD originates from the photoemission matrix elements, which can have extrinsic contributions related to the experimental geometry and the inherently broken inversion symmetry at the sample surface. Therefore, it is important to broadly examine CD-ARPES to determine the scenarios in which it provides a robust probe of intrinsic material physics. We performed CD-ARPES on the canonical topological insulator Bi2Se3 over a wide range of incident photon energies. Not only do we observe angle-dependent CD in the surface states, as expected, but we also find CD of a similar magnitude in virtually all bulk bands. Since OAM is forbidden by inversion symmetry in the bulk, we conclude this originates from symmetry-breaking in the photoemission process. Comparison with theoretical calculations supports this view and suggests that “hidden” OAM—localized to atomic sites within each unit cell—contributes significantly. Additional effects, including inter-atomic interference and final-state resonances, are responsible for the rapid variation of the CDAD signal with photon energy.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033027– Published 7 July, 2025
  • Received 16 March 2025
  • Accepted 12 May 2025
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