Variation of elastic scattering across a quantum well

The Drude scattering times of electrons in two subbands of a parabolic quantum well have been studied at constant electron sheet density and different positions of the electron distribution along the growth direction. The scattering times obtained by magnetotransport measurements decrease as the electrons are displaced towards the well edges, although the lowest-subband density increases. By comparing the measurements with calculations of the scattering times of a two-subband system, new information on the location of the relevant scatterers and the anisotropy of intersubband scattering is obtained. It is found that the scattering time of electrons in the lower subband depends sensitively on the position of the scatterers, which also explains the measured dependence of the scattering on the carrier density. The measurements indicate segregation of scatterers from the substrate side towards the quantum well during growth.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Semiclassical theory of transport in a random magnetic field

We study the semiclassical kinetics of 2D fermions in a smoothly varying magnetic field $B({\bf r})$. The nature of the transport depends crucially on both the strength $B_0$ of the random component of $B({\bf r})$ and its mean value $\bar{B}$. For $\bar{B}=0$, the governing parameter is $\alpha=d/R_0$, where $d$ is the correlation length of disorder and $R_0$ is the Larmor radius in the field $B_0$. While for $\alpha\ll 1$ the Drude theory applies, at $\alpha\gg 1$ most particles drift adiabatically along closed contours and are localized in the adiabatic approximation. The conductivity is then determined by a special class of trajectories, the "snake states", which percolate by scattering at the saddle points of $B({\bf r})$ where the adiabaticity of their motion breaks down. The external field also suppresses the diffusion by creating a percolation network of drifting cyclotron orbits. This kind of percolation is due only to a weak violation of the adiabaticity of the cyclotron rotation, yielding an exponential drop of the conductivity at large $\bar{B}$. In the regime $\alpha\gg 1$ the crossover between the snake-state percolation and the percolation of the drift orbits with increasing $\bar{B}$ has the character of a phase transition (localization of snake states) smeared exponentially weakly by non-adiabatic effects. The ac conductivity also reflects the dynamical properties of particles moving on the fractal percolation network. In particular, it has a sharp kink at zero frequency and falls off exponentially at higher frequencies. We also discuss the nature of the quantum magnetooscillations. Detailed numerical studies confirm the analytical findings. The shape of the magnetoresistivity at $\alpha\sim 1$ is in good agreement with experimental data in the FQHE regime near $\nu=1/2$.Comment: 22 pages REVTEX, 14 figure

Thermodynamic Signature of a Two-Dimensional Metal-Insulator Transition

We present a study of the compressibility, K, of a two-dimensional hole system which exhibits a metal-insulator phase transition at zero magnetic field. It has been observed that dK/dp changes sign at the critical density for the metal-insulator transition. Measurements also indicate that the insulating phase is incompressible for all values of B. Finally, we show how the phase transition evolves as the magnetic field is varied and construct a phase diagram in the density-magnetic field plane for this system.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letters; version 1 is identical to version 2 but didn't compile properl

Tunneling Between Parallel Two-Dimensional Electron Gases

The tunneling between two parallel two-dimensional electron gases has been investigated as a function of temperature $T$, carrier density $n$, and the applied perpendicular magnetic field $B$. In zero magnetic field the equilibrium resonant lineshape is Lorentzian, reflecting the Lorentzian form of the spectral functions within each layer. From the width of the tunneling resonance the lifetime of the electrons within a 2DEG has been measured as a function of $n$ and $T$, giving information about the density dependence of the electron-impurity scattering and the temperature dependence of the electron-electron scattering. In a magnetic field there is a general suppression of equilibrium tunneling for fields above $B=0.6$ T. A gap in the tunneling density of states has been measured over a wide range of magnetic fields and filling factors, and various theoretical predictions have been examined. In a strong magnetic field, when there is only one partially filled Landau level in each layer, the temperature dependence of the conductance characteristics has been modeled with a double-Gaussian spectral density.Comment: LaTeX requires REVTeX macros. Eighteen pages. Fourteen postscript figures are included. (All figures have been bitmapped to save space. The original can be requested by email from [email protected]). Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

On the Theory of Metal-Insulator Transitions in Gated Semiconductors

It is shown that recent experiments indicating a metal-insulator transition in 2D electron systems can be interpreted in terms of a simple model, in which the resistivity is controlled by scattering at charged hole traps located in the oxide layer. The gate voltage changes the number of charged traps which results in a sharp change in the resistivity. The observed exponential temperature dependence of the resistivity in the metallic phase of the transition follows from the temperature dependence of the trap occupation number. The model naturally describes the experimentally observed scaling properties of the transition and effects of magnetic and electric fields.Comment: 4 two-column pages, 4 figures (included in the text

Dephasing time of composite fermions

We study the dephasing of fermions interacting with a fluctuating transverse gauge field. The divergence of the imaginary part of the fermion self energy at finite temperatures is shown to result from a breakdown of Fermi's golden rule due to a faster than exponential decay in time. The strong dephasing affects experiments where phase coherence is probed. This result is used to describe the suppression of Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations of composite fermions (oscillations in the conductivity near the half-filled Landau level). We find that it is important to take into account both the effect of dephasing and the mass renormalization. We conclude that while it is possible to use the conventional theory to extract an effective mass from the temperature dependence of the SdH oscillations, the resulting effective mass differs from the $m^\ast$ of the quasiparticle in Fermi liquid theory.Comment: 14 pages, RevTeX 3.0, epsf, 1 EPS figur

Collapse of Spin-Splitting in the Quantum Hall Effect

It is known experimentally that at not very large filling factors $\nu$ the quantum Hall conductivity peaks corresponding to the same Landau level number $N$ and two different spin orientations are well separated. These peaks occur at half-integer filling factors $\nu = 2 N + 1/2$ and $\nu = 2 N + 3/2$ so that the distance between them $\delta\nu$ is unity. As $\nu$ increases $\delta\nu$ shrinks. Near certain $N = N_c$ two peaks abruptly merge into a single peak at $\nu = 2N + 1$. We argue that this collapse of the spin-splitting at low magnetic fields is attributed to the disorder-induced destruction of the exchange enhancement of the electron $g$-factor. We use the mean-field approach to show that in the limit of zero Zeeman energy $\delta\nu$ experiences a second-order phase transition as a function of the magnetic field. We give explicit expressions for $N_c$ in terms of a sample's parameters. For example, we predict that for high-mobility heterostructures $N_c = 0.9 d n^{5/6} n_i^{-1/3},$ where $d$ is the spacer width, $n$ is the density of the two-dimensional electron gas, and $n_i$ is the two-dimensional density of randomly situated remote donors.Comment: 14 pages, compressed Postscript fil

Apparent Metallic Behavior at B = 0 of a two-dimensional electron system in AlAs

We report the observation of metallic-like behavior at low temperatures and zero magnetic field in two dimensional (2D) electrons in an AlAs quantum well. At high densities the resistance of the sample decreases with decreasing temperature, but as the density is reduced the behavior changes to insulating, with the resistance increasing as the temperature is decreased. The effect is similar to that observed in 2D electrons in Si-MOSFETs, and in 2D holes in SiGe and GaAs, and points to the generality of this phenomenon