No Arabic abstract
Recent transport experiments in spatially modulated quasi-1D structures created on top of LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ interfaces have revealed some interesting features, including phenomena conspicuously absent without the modulation. In this work, we focus on two of these remarkable features and provide theoretical analysis allowing their interpretation. The first one is the appearance of two-terminal conductance plateaus at rational fractions of $e^2/h$. We explain how this phenomenon, previously believed to be possible only in systems with strong repulsive interactions, can be stabilized in a system with attraction in the presence of the modulation. Using our theoretical framework we find the plateau amplitude and shape, and characterize the correlated phase which develops in the system due to the partial gap, namely a Luttinger liquid of electronic trions. The second observation is a sharp conductance dip below a conductance of $1times e^2/h$, which changes its value over a wide range when tuning the system. We theorize that it is due to resonant backscattering caused by a periodic spin-orbit field. The behavior of this dip can be reliably accounted for by considering the finite length of the electronic waveguides, as well as the interactions therein. The phenomena discussed in this work exemplify the intricate interplay of strong interactions and spatial modulations, and reveal the potential for novel strongly correlated phases of matter in systems which prominently feature both.
We report on angle-dependent measurements of the sheet resistances and Hall coefficients of electron liquids in SmTiO3/SrTiO3/SmTiO3 quantum well structures, which were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on (001) DyScO3. We compare their transport properties with those of similar structures grown on LSAT [(La0.3Sr0.7)(Al0.65Ta0.35)O3]. On DyScO3, planar defects normal to the quantum wells lead to a strong in-plane anisotropy in the transport properties. This allows for quantifying the role of defects in transport. In particular, we investigate differences in the longitudinal and Hall scattering rates, which is a non-Fermi liquid phenomenon known as lifetime separation. The residuals in both the longitudinal resistance and Hall angle were found to depend on the relative orientations of the transport direction to the planar defects. The Hall angle exhibited a robust T2 temperature dependence along all directions, whereas no simple power law could describe the temperature dependence of the longitudinal resistances. Remarkably, the degree of the carrier lifetime separation, as manifested in the distinctly different temperature dependences and diverging residuals near a critical quantum well thickness, was completely insensitive to disorder. The results allow for a clear distinction between disorder-induced contributions to the transport and intrinsic, non-Fermi liquid phenomena, which includes the lifetime separation.
We report electronic transport measurements on two-dimensional electron gases in a Ga[Al]As heterostructure with an embedded layer of InAs self-assembled quantum dots. At high InAs dot densities, pronounced Altshuler-Aronov-Spivak magnetoresistance oscillations are observed, which indicate short-range ordering of the potential landscape formed by the charged dots and the strain fields. The presence of these oscillations coincides with the observation of a metal-insulator transition, and a maximum in the electron mobility as a function of the electron density. Within a model based on correlated disorder, we establish a relation between these effects.
We report the experimental realization of a correlated insulating phase in 2D GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures at low electron densities in a limited window of background disorder. This has been achieved at mesoscopic length scales, where the insulating phase is characterized by a universal hopping transport mechanism. Transport in this regime is determined only by the average electron separation, independent of the topology of background disorder. We have discussed this observation in terms of a pinned electron solid ground state, stabilized by mutual interplay of disorder and Coulomb interaction.
We present results of experimental and theoretical investigations of electron transport through stub-shaped waveguides or electron stub tuners (ESTs) in the ballistic regime. Measurements of the conductance G as a function of voltages, applied to different gates V_i (i=bottom, top, and side) of the device, show oscillations in the region of the first quantized plateau which we attribute to reflection resonances. The oscillations are rather regular and almost periodic when the height h of the EST cavity is small compared to its width. When h is increased, the oscillations become less regular and broad depressions in G appear. A theoretical analysis, which accounts for the electrostatic potential formed by the gates in the cavity region, and a numerical computation of the transmission probabilities successfully explains the experimental observations. An important finding for real devices, defined by surface Schottky gates, is that the resonance nima result from size quantization along the transport direction of the EST.
We investigate transport and Coulomb drag properties of semiconductor-based electron-hole bilayer systems. Our calculations are motivated by recent experiments in undoped electron-hole bilayer structures based on GaAs-AlGaAs gated double quantum well systems. Our results indicate that the background charged impurity scattering is the most dominant resistive scattering mechanism in the high-mobility bilyers. We also find that the drag transresistivity is significantly enhanced when the electron-hole layer separation is small due to the exchange induced renormalization of the single layer compressibility.