Graphene Sublattice Symmetry and Isospin Determined by Circular Dichroism in Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy

The Dirac-like electronic structure of graphene originates from the equivalence of the two basis atoms in the honeycomb lattice. We show that the characteristic parameters of the initial state wave function (sublattice symmetry and isospin) can be determined using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) with circularly polarized synchrotron radiation. At a photon energy of h nu = 52 eV, transition matrix element effects can be neglected allowing us to determine sublattice symmetry and isospin with high accuracy using a simple theoretical model.