Evidence for Large Spin-Orbit Coupling in Metallic Molybdenum

Abstract

We report accurate measurements of the caliper dimensions of the molybdenum Fermi surface. From these measurements, we estimate the separation between the electron jack and the hole octahedra along the $〈100〉$ directions to be (7.5±1)% of the $\Gamma H$ dimension. This large separation implies that spin-orbit coupling is much greater than expected for metallic molybdenum.