We have fabricated and characterized the Landau level spin diode in GaAs two dimensional hole system. We used the hole Landau level spin diode to probe the hyperfine coupling between the hole and nuclear spins and found no detectable net nuclear pola
rization, indicating that hole-nuclear spin flip-flop processes are suppressed by at least three orders of magnitude compared to GaAs electron systems.
We report quantum dots fabricated on very shallow 2-dimensional electron gases, only 30 nm below the surface, in undoped GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Due to the absence of dopants, an improvement of more than one orde
r of magnitude in mobility (at 2E11 /cm^2) with respect to doped heterostructures with similar depths is observed. These undoped wafers can easily be gated with surface metallic gates patterned by e-beam lithography, as demonstrated here from single-level transport through a quantum dot showing large charging energies (up to 1.75 meV) and excited state energies (up to 0.5 meV).
Modulation doped GaAs-AlGaAs quantum well based structures are usually used to achieve very high mobility 2-dimensional electron (or hole) gases. Usually high mobilities ($>10^{7}{rm{cm}^{2}rm{V}^{-1}rm{s}^{-1}}$) are achieved at high densities. A lo
ss of linear gateability is often associated with the highest mobilites, on account of a some residual hopping or parallel conduction in the doped regions. We have developed a method of using fully undoped GaAs-AlGaAs quantum wells, where densities $approx{6times10^{11}rm{cm}^{-2}}$ can be achieved while maintaining fully linear and non-hysteretic gateability. We use these devices to understand the possible mobility limiting mechanisms at very high densities.
We demonstrate a method of making a very shallow, gateable, undoped 2-dimensional electron gas. We have developed a method of making very low resistivity contacts to these structures and systematically studied the evolution of the mobility as a funct
ion of the depth of the 2DEG (from 300nm to 30nm). We demonstrate a way of extracting quantitative information about the background impurity concentration in GaAs and AlGaAs, the interface roughness and the charge in the surface states from the data. This information is very useful from the perspective of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth. It is difficult to fabricate such shallow high-mobility 2DEGs using modulation doping due to the need to have a large enough spacer layer to reduce scattering and switching noise from remote ionsied dopants.
We report single layer resistivities of 2-dimensional electron and hole gases in an electron-hole bilayer with a 10nm barrier. In a regime where the interlayer interaction is stronger than the intralayer interaction, we find that an insulating state
($drho/dT < 0$) emerges at $Tsim1.5{rm K}$ or lower, when both the layers are simultaneously present. This happens deep in the $$metallic regime, even in layers with $k_{F}l>500$, thus making conventional mechanisms of localisation due to disorder improbable. We suggest that this insulating state may be due to a charge density wave phase, as has been expected in electron-hole bilayers from the Singwi-Tosi-Land-Sjolander approximation based calculations of L. Liu {it et al} [{em Phys. Rev. B}, {bf 53}, 7923 (1996)]. Our results are also in qualitative agreement with recent Path-Integral-Monte-Carlo simulations of a two component plasma in the low temperature regime [ P. Ludwig {it et al}. {em Contrib. Plasma Physics} {bf 47}, No. 4-5, 335 (2007)]
We report Coulomb drag measurements on GaAs-AlGaAs electron-hole bilayers. The two layers are separated by a 10 or 25nm barrier. Below T$approx$1K we find two features that a Fermi-liquid picture cannot explain. First, the drag on the hole layer show
s an upturn, which may be followed by a downturn. Second, the effect is either absent or much weaker in the electron layer, even though the measurements are within the linear response regime. Correlated phases have been anticipated in these, but surprisingly, the experimental results appear to contradict Onsagers reciprocity theorem.
Undoped GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures have been used to fabricate quantum wires in which the average impurity separation is greater than the device size. We compare the behavior of the Zero-Bias Anomaly against predictions from Kondo and spin polariza
tion models. Both theories display shortcomings, the most dramatic of which are the linear electron-density dependence of the Zero-Bias Anomaly spin-splitting at fixed magnetic field B and the suppression of the Zeeman effect at pinch-off.
Using high quality undoped GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures with optically patterned insulation between two layers of gates, it is possible to investigate very low density mesoscopic regions where the number of impurities is well quantified. Signature ap
pearances of the scattering length scale arise in confined two dimensional regions, where the zero-bias anomaly (ZBA) is also observed. These results explicitly outline the molecular beam epitaxy growth parameters necessary to obtain ultra low density large two dimensional regions as well as clean reproducible mesoscopic devices.
We report our work on fabricating lithographically aligned patterned backgates on thin (50-60$mu$m) Roman{roman3}-Roman{roman5} semiconductor samples using {it single sided mask aligners only}. Along with this we also present a way to photograph both
sides of a thin patterned chip using inexpensive infra-red light emitting diodes (LED) and an inexpensive (consumer) digital camera. A robust method of contacting both sides of a sample using an ultrasonic bonder is described. In addition we present a mathematical model to analyse the variation of the electrochemical potential through the doped layers and heterojunctions that are normally present in most GaAs based devices. We utilise the technique and the estimates from our model to fabricate an electron-hole bilayer device in which each layer is separately contacted and has tunable densities. The electron and hole layers are separated by barriers either 25 or 15nm wide. In both cases, the densities can be matched by using appropriate bias voltages.
We describe a technique to fabricate closely spaced electron-hole bilayers in GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructures. Our technique incorporates a novel method for making shallow contacts to a low density ($<10^{11}cm^{-2}$) 2-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) t
hat do not require annealing. Four terminal measurements on both layers (25nm apart) are possible. Measurements show a hole mobility $mu_{h}>10^{5}{rm cm}^{2}{rm V}^{-1}{rm s}^{-1}$ and an electron mobility $mu_{e}>10^{6}{rm cm}^{2}{rm V}^{-1}{rm s}^{-1}$ at 1.5K. Preliminary drag measurements made down to T=300mK indicate an enhancement of coulomb interaction over the values obtained from a static Random Phase Approximation (RPA) calculation.
