Electronic structure of the 2D electron Gasat the AlO_x/KTaO_3(110) interface

Abstract

Oxide-based 2D electron gases (2DEGs) have generated significant interest due to their potential for discovering novel physical properties. Among these, 2DEGs formed in KTaO3 stand out due to the recently discovered cristal face-dependent superconductivity and large Rashba splitting, both of which hold potential for future oxide electronics devices. In this work, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is used to study the electronic structure of the 2DEG formed at the (110) surface of KTaO_3 after deposition of a thin Al layer. The experiments reveal a remarkable anisotropy in the orbital character of the electron-like dispersive bands, which form a Fermi surface consisting of two elliptical contours with their major axes perpendicular to each other. The measured electronic structure is used to constrain the modeling parameters of self-consistent tight-binding slab calculations of the band structure. In these calculations, an anisotropic Rashba splitting is found with a value as large as 4 meV at the Fermi level along the [−110] crystallographic direction. This large unconventional and anisotropic Rashba splitting is rationalized based on the orbital angular momentum formulation. These findings provide insights into the interpretation of spin-orbitronics experiments and help to constrain models for superconductivity in the KTO(110)-2DEG system.