Dresden 2026 – scientific programme

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 60: Focus Session: Unoccupied States by Inverse Photoemission I

O 60.5: Talk

Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 11:45–12:00, WILL/A317

Surface state on Au(111): Shockley vs topology — •Patrick Geers, Fabian Schöttke, and Markus Donath — University of Münster, Germany

The L-gap surface state on Au(111) is the famous prototype for a Rashba-split Shockley surface state (SS). In 2015, Yan et al. posed the question whether Shockley-type SSs may be interpreted as variation of SSs in topological insulators, as both states exist in inverted band gaps [1]. The behaviour of the SS away from Γ is important to answer this question. It is crucial to know whether the SS potentially closes the inverted band gap between Γ and M. An analysis of not only the existence of SSs but also their spin textures is necessary to show a potential topologically nontrivial character of such SSs.
Inverse photoemission (IPE) as a technique to study the unoccupied electronic states is capable to measure these SSs with spin resolution at expected energies of about 4 eV above the Fermi level. In this talk, we present spin-resolved IPE results for Au(111) showing the energy vs momentum range between Γ and M, where the SS merges into the bulk bands.
[1] Yan et al., Nat. Commun. 6, 10167 (2015).

Keywords: Inverse Photoemission; Surface States; Au(111); Topology