Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and its application to topological materials

TL;DR

This paper reviews the advancements in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) techniques and their critical role in discovering and analyzing topological materials with unique electronic structures.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive assessment of recent ARPES developments and demonstrates their application in studying topological insulators and semimetals.

Findings

Advancements in soft-X-ray, time-resolved, spin-resolved, and spatially resolved ARPES.

ARPES's crucial role in identifying topological insulators and Weyl semimetals.

Enhanced energy and momentum resolution in ARPES techniques.

Abstract

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), an experimental technique based on the photoelectric effect, is arguably the most powerful method for probing the electronic structure of solids. The past decade has witnessed notable progress in ARPES, including the rapid development of soft-X-ray ARPES, time-resolved ARPES, spin-resolved ARPES and spatially resolved ARPES, as well as considerable improvements in energy and momentum resolution. Consequently , ARPES has emerged as an indispensable experimental probe in the study of topological materials, which have characteristic non-trivial bulk and surface electronic structures that can be directly detected by ARPES. Over the past few years, ARPES has had a crucial role in several landmark discoveries in topological materials, including the identification of topological insulators and topological Dirac and Weyl semimetals. In this Technical Review , we assess the latest developments in different ARPES techniques and illustrate the capabilities of these techniques with applications in the study of topological materials.