Orbital Hybridization Induces Giant Cubic Rashba Effect at Cu/WO$_{3}$ Interface
Harnessing Rashba spin-orbit interaction and related spintronic functionalities has traditionally relied on metallic surfaces or interfaces containing elemental heavy metals. Here, using first-principles calculations and Cu(001)/WO$_3$(001) as a model heterostructure, we show that interfacing a light metal, Cu, with a band insulator, WO$_3$, yields an interface state that exhibits a robust Rashba spin splitting arising from the interplay between linear and cubic Rashba effects. The spin splitting is driven by the strong spin-orbit coupling of W atoms and enabled by W-Cu orbital hybridization at the interface. The cubic Rashba contribution asymptotically grows with Cu thickness and can be explained in terms of cross-coupling between the vacuum/Cu and Cu/WO$_3$ interfaces. This interfacial cross-coupling, however, diminishes at larger Cu thicknesses, allowing us to extract the intrinsic cubic Rashba parameter, which has a giant value of approximately -1.93 eV $Å^3$. In contrast, the linear Rashba parameter is only weakly affected by this cross-coupling and varies from approximately 0.30 to 0.49 eV Å. We further show that sizable linear and cubic Rashba effects persist across several interface geometries and Cu surface orientations, including (110) and (111). Our work identifies the Cu/WO$_3$ interface as a novel light-metal/heavy-element-based oxide platform for exploring the rich spectrum of Rashba physics, including linear and nonlinear spin-orbit phenomena.