Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userDensity of states measurements for heavy subband of holes in HgTe quantum wells
206
0
0.0
(
0
)
Added by
Alexander Kuntsevich
Publication date
2019
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Valence band in narrow HgTe quantum wells contains well-conductive Dirac-like light holes at the $Gamma$ point and poorly conductive heavy hole subband located in the local valleys. Here we propose and employ two methods to measure the density of states for these heavy holes. The first method uses a gate-recharging technique to measure thermodynamical entropy per particle. As the Fermi level is tuned with gate voltage from light to heavy subband, the entropy increases dramatically, and the value of this increase gives an estimate for the density of states. The second method determines the density of states for heavy holes indirectly from the gate voltage dependence of the period of the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations for light holes. The results obtained by both methods are in the reasonable agreement with each other. Our approaches can be applied to measure large effective carrier masses in other two-dimensional gated systems.
rate research
Read More
We report on beating appearance in Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in conduction band of 18-22nm HgTe quantum wells under applied top-gate voltage. Analysis of the beatings reveals two electron concentrations at the Fermi level arising due to Rashba-like spin splitting of the first conduction subband H1. The difference dN_s in two concentrations as a function of the gate voltage is qualitatively explained by a proposed toy electrostatic model involving the surface states localized at quantum well interfaces. Experimental values of dN_s are also in a good quantitative agreement with self-consistent calculations of Poisson and Schrodinger equations with eight-band kp Hamiltonian. Our results clearly demonstrate that the large spin splitting of the first conduction subband is caused by surface nature of $H1$ states hybridized with the heavy-hole band.
We propose a minimal effective two-dimensional Hamiltonian for HgTe/CdHgTe quantum wells (QWs) describing the side maxima of the first valence subband. By using the Hamiltonian, we explore the picture of helical edge states in tensile and compressively strained HgTe QWs. We show that both dispersion and probability density of the edge states can differ significantly from those predicted by the Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang (BHZ) model. Our results pave the way towards further theoretical investigations of HgTe-based quantum spin Hall insulators with direct and indirect band gaps beyond the BHZ model.
The results of experimental study of interference induced magnetoconductivity in narrow HgTe quantum wells of hole-type conductivity with a normal energy spectrum are presented. Interpretation of the data is performed with taking into account the strong spin-orbit splitting of the energy spectrum of the two-dimensional hole subband. It is shown that the phase relaxation time found from the analysis of the shape of magnetoconductivity curves for the relatively low conductivity when the Fermi level lies in the monotonic part of the energy spectrum of the valence band behaves itself analogously to that observed in narrow HgTe quantum wells of electron-type conductivity. It increases in magnitude with the increasing conductivity and decreasing temperature following the $1/T$ law. Such a behavior corresponds to the inelasticity of electron-electron interaction as the main mechanism of the phase relaxation and agrees well with the theoretical predictions. For the higher conductivity, despite the fact that the dephasing time remains inversely proportional to the temperature, it strongly decreases with the increasing conductivity. It is presumed that a nonmonotonic character of the hole energy spectrum could be the reason for such a peculiarity. An additional channel of the inelastic interaction between the carriers in the main and secondary maxima occurs when the Fermi level arrives the secondary maxima in the depth of the valence.
The solutions for the helical edge states for an effective continuum model for the quantum spin Hall effect in HgTe/CdTe quantum wells are presented. For a sample of a large size, the solution gives the linear dispersion for the edge states. However, in a finite strip geometry, the edge states at two sides will couple with each other, which leads to a finite energy gap in the spectra. The gap decays in an exponential law of the width of sample. The magnetic field dependence of the edge states illustrates the difference of the edge states from those of a conventional quantum Hall strip of two-dimensional electron gas.
We report on the observation of the terahertz radiation induced circular (CPGE) and linear (LPGE) photogalvanic effects in HgTe quantum wells. The current response is well described by the phenomenological theory of CPGE and LPGE.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
