We investigate the two-dimensional (2D) highly spin-polarized electron
accumulation layers commonly appearing near the surface of n-type polar
semiconductors BiTeX (X = I, Br, and Cl) by angular-resolved photoemission
spectroscopy. Due to the polarity and the strong spin-orbit interaction built
in the bulk atomic configurations, the quantized conduction-band subbands show
giant Rashba-type spin-splitting. The characteristic 2D confinement effect is
clearly observed also in the valence-bands down to the binding energy of 4 eV.
The X-dependent Rashba spin-orbit coupling is directly estimated from the
observed spin-split subbands, which roughly scales with the inverse of the
band-gap size in BiTeX.Comment: 15 pages 4 figure
