Comment on "Rotating Spin and Giant Splitting: Unoccupied Surface Electronic Structure of Tl/Si(111)"

Abstract

Rashba effect in 2D systems is extensively studied nowadays due to spintronics applications. The Letter studies the fundamentals of spin-orbit interaction in 2D systems. Experimental evidence is claimed for the rotation of the spin polarization vector in Tl/Si from an in-plane Rashba polarization at $\overline{\Gamma}$ to the surface normal at $\overline{K}$($\overline{K}'$) valleys. These results are possible thanks to the single setup that could measure spin-resolved inverse photoemission (IPES) with in- and out-of- plane sensitivity. This Comment clarifies that (i) when considering the full data set in the Letter, the in-plane polarization does not vanish at the valleys, (ii) the Letter does not explain that the out-of-plane data are not real measurements, in the sense that they are derived by considering the fulfillment of a theoretical symmetry or from an unspecified data treatment.