Magneto-optical evidence of the percolation nature of the metal-insulator transition in the 2D electron system

We compare the results of the transport and time-resolved magneto-luminescence measurements in disordered 2D electron systems in GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructures in the extreme quantum limit, in particular, in the vicinity of the metal-insulator transition (MIT). At filling factors $\nu <1$, the optical signal has two components: the single-rate exponentially decaying part attributed to a uniform liquid and a power-law long-living tail specific to a microscopically inhomogeneous state of electrons. We interprete this result as a separation of the 2D electron system into a liquid and localized phases, especially because the MIT occurs strikingly close to those filling factors where the liquid occupies ${1\over 2}$ of the sample area (the percollation threshold condition in two-component media).Comment: 5 pages RevTex + 4 fig., to appear in PRB, Rapid Com

Measurement of binding energy of negatively charged excitons in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells

We report a photoluminescence study of electron-hole complexes in specially designed semiconductor heterostructures. Placing a remote dilute layer of donors at different distances \itshape d \normalfont from the quantum well leads to the transformation of luminescence spectra of neutral ($X$) and negatively charged ($X^{-}$) excitons. The onset of an additional spectral line and its energy dependence on \itshape d \normalfont allows us to unambiguously relate the so-called $X^{-}$ trion state with charged excitons bound on charged donors in a barrier. The results indicate the overestimation in free-trion binding energies from previous studies of GaAs/Al$_{0.3}$Ga$_{0.7}$As quantum wells, and give their corrected values for QWs of width 200 and 300 \AA \space in the limiting case of infinitely distant donors.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Novel relativistic plasma excitations in a gated two-dimensional electron system

The microwave response of a two-dimensional electron system (2DES) covered by a conducting top gate is investigated in the relativistic regime for which the 2D conductivity $\sigma_{2 \rm{D}} > c/2\pi$. Weakly damped plasma waves are excited in the gated region of the 2DES. The frequency and amplitude of the resulting plasma excitations show a very unusual dependence on the magnetic field, conductivity, gate geometry and separation from the 2DES. We show that such relativistic plasmons survive for temperatures up to 300 K, allowing for new room-temperature microwave and terahertz applications.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure