We investigate energy transfer between counter-propagating quantum Hall edge channels (ECs) in a two-dimensional electron system at filling factor u=1. The ECs are separated by a thin impenetrable potential barrier and Coulomb coupled, thereby const
ituting a quasi one-dimensional analogue of a spinless Luttinger liquid (LL). We drive one, say hot, EC far from thermal equilibrium and measure the energy transfer rate P into the second, cold, EC using a quantum point contact as a bolometer. The dependence of P on the drive bias indicates breakdown of the momentum conservation, whereas P is almost independent on the length of the region where the ECs interact. Interpreting our results in terms of plasmons (collective density excitations), we find that the energy transfer between the ECs occurs via plasmon backscattering at the boundaries of the LL. The backscattering probability is determined by the LL interaction parameter and can be tuned by changing the width of the electrostatic potential barrier between the ECs.
We experimentally investigate the temperature (T) dependence of the resistance of a classical ballistic point contact (PC) in a two-dimensional electron system (2DES). The split-gate PC is realized in a high-quality AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure. The P
C resistance is found to drop by more than 10% as T is raised from 0.5 K to 4.2 K. In the absence of a magnetic field, the T dependence is roughly linear below 2 K and tends to saturate at higher T. Perpendicular magnetic fields on the order of a few 10 mT suppress the T-dependent contribution dR. This effect is more pronounced at lower temperatures, causing a crossover to a nearly parabolic T dependence in a magnetic field. The normalized magnetic field dependencies dR(B) permit an empiric single parameter scaling in a wide range of PC gate voltages. These observations give strong evidence for the influence of electron-electron (e-e) scattering on the resistance of ballistic PCs. Our results are in qualitative agreement with a recent theory of the e-e scattering based T dependence of the conductance of classical ballistic PCs [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 101 216807 (2008) and Phys. Rev. B 81 125316 (2010)].
At low energy, electrons in doped graphene sheets behave like massless Dirac fermions with a Fermi velocity which does not depend on carrier density. Here we show that modulating a two-dimensional electron gas with a long-wavelength periodic potentia
l with honeycomb symmetry can lead to the creation of isolated massless Dirac points with tunable Fermi velocity. We provide detailed theoretical estimates to realize such artificial graphene-like system and discuss an experimental realization in a modulation-doped GaAs quantum well. Ultra high-mobility electrons with linearly-dispersing bands might open new venues for the studies of Dirac-fermion physics in semiconductors.
