We report density dependent instabilities in the localised regime of mesoscopic two-dimensional electron systems (2DES) with intermediate strength of background disorder. They are manifested by strong resistance oscillations induced by high perpendicular magnetic fields B_{perp}. While the amplitude of the oscillations is strongly enhanced with increasing B_{perp}, their position in density remains unaffected. The observation is accompanied by an unusual behaviour of the temperature dependence of resistance and activation energies. We suggest the interplay between a strongly interacting electron phase and the background disorder as a possible explanation.
Nanoelectronic devices embedded in the two-dimensional electron system (2DES) of a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure enable a large variety of applications from fundamental research to high speed transistors. Electrical circuits are thereby commonly defined by creating barriers for carriers by selective depletion of a pre-existing 2DES. Here we explore an alternative approach: we deplete the 2DES globally by applying a negative voltage to a global top gate and screen the electric field of the top gate only locally using nanoscale gates placed on the wafer surface between the plane of the 2DES and the top gate. Free carriers are located beneath the screen gates and their properties can be controlled by means of geometry and applied voltages. This method promises considerable advantages for the definition of complex circuits by the electric field effect as it allows to reduce the number of gates and simplify gate geometries. Examples are carrier systems with ring topology or large arrays of quantum dots. Here, we present a first exploration of this method pursuing field effect, Hall effect and Aharonov-Bohm measurements to study electrostatic, dynamic and coherent properties.
In two-dimensional (2D) electron systems, an off-resonant high-frequency circularly polarized electromagnetic field can induce the quasi-stationary bound electron states of repulsive scatterers. As a consequence, the resonant scattering of conduction electrons through the quasi-stationary states and the capture of conduction electrons by the states appear. The present theory describes the transport properties of 2D electron gas irradiated by a circularly polarized light, which are modified by these processes. Particularly, it is demonstrated that irradiation of 2D electron systems by the off-resonant field results in the quantum correction to conductivity of resonant kind.
We compute the single-particle states of a two-dimensional electron gas confined to the surface of a cylinder immersed in a magnetic field. The envelope-function equation has been solved exactly for both an homogeneous and a periodically modulated magnetic field perpendicular to the cylinder axis. The nature and energy dispersion of the quantum states reflects the interplay between different lengthscales, namely, the cylinder diameter, the magnetic length, and, possibly, the wavelength of the field modulation. We show that a transverse homogeneous magnetic field drives carrier states from a quasi-2D (cylindrical) regime to a quasi-1D regime where carriers form channels along the cylinder surface. Furthermore, a magnetic field which is periodically modulated along the cylinder axis may confine the carriers to tunnel-coupled stripes, rings or dots on the cylinder surface, depending on the ratio between the the field periodicity and the cylinder radius. Results in different regimes are traced to either incipient Landau levels formation or Aharonov-Bohm behaviour.
Current-induced spin polarization (CISP) is rederived in ballistic spin-orbit-coupled electron systems, based on equilibrium statistical mechanics. A simple and useful picture is correspondingly proposed to help understand the CISP and predict the polarization direction. Nonequilibrium Landauer-Keldysh formalism is applied to demonstrate the validity of the statistical picture, taking the linear Rashba-Dresselhaus [001] two-dimensional system as a specific example. Spin densities induced by the CISP in semiconductor heterostructures and in metallic surface states are compared, showing that the CISP increases with the spin splitting strength and hence suggesting that the CISP should be more observable on metal and semimetal surfaces due to the discovered strong Rashba splitting. An application of the CISP designed to generate a spin-Hall pattern in the inplane, instead of the out-of-plane, component is also proposed.
Two dimensional heterostructures are likely to provide new avenues for the manipulation of magnetization that is crucial for spintronics or magnetoelectronics. Here, we demonstrate that optical spin pumping can generate a large effective magnetic field in two dimensional MoSe2/WSe2 heterostructures. We determine the strength of the generated field by polarization-resolved measurement of the interlayer exciton photoluminescence spectrum: the measured splitting exceeding 10 milli-electron volts (meV) between the emission originating from the two valleys corresponds to an effective magnetic field of ~ 30 T. The strength of this optically induced field can be controlled by the excitation light polarization. Our finding opens up new possibilities for optically controlled spintronic devices based on van der Waals heterostructures.