title: Passage from spin-polarized surface states to unpolarized quantum well states in topologically nontrivial Sb films.
abstract: Topological materials have unusual surface spin properties including a net surface spin current protected by the bulk symmetry properties. When such materials are reduced to thin films, their gapless spin-polarized surface states must connect, by analytic continuation, to bulk-derived quantum-well states, which are spin-unpolarized in centrosymmetric systems. The nature of this passage in a model system, Sb films, is investigated. Angle-resolved photoemission shows a smooth transition, while calculations elucidate the correlated evolution of the spin and charge distributions in real space.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080, USA.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bian
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: T-C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Chiang