Experimental observation of edge magnetoplasma excitations in a two-dimensional electron system in the quantum-hall-effect regime

New low-frequency modes corresponding to acoustic edge magnetoplasma excitations have been observed in the resonance microwave absorption spectra of a two-dimensional electron system in a transverse magnetic field. The additional excitation modes have been shown to appear only in the quantum-Hall-effect regime (in narrow magnetic-field regions near the integer values of the filling factor), when the resonance microwave absorption lines exhibit sharp narrowing. The absolute values of the resonance absorption frequencies and their dependence on the parameters of the electron system coincide (without any fitting parameters) with the respective theoretical predictions of the formula describing the properties of the acoustic modes of edge magnetoplasma excitations.     

Study of edge magnetoplasma excitations in two-dimensional electron systems with various edge depletion profiles

Resonant microwave absorption by two-dimensional electrons has been measured using coplanar and strip methods. The influence of the edge of a two-dimensional system on the dispersion of edge magnetoplasmons has been studied. It has been found that the edge width can be varied within wide limits (by almost two orders of magnitude) by changing the etching depth of the crystal. It has been shown that the edge of the electron system in the case of etching through the quantum well has a width of about 0.2 μm, whereas the edge in the case of shallow etching (e.g., down to the donor layer) is smooth and can be as wide as 12 μm. The influence of a logarithmic factor, depending on the edge width of the electron system, on edge magnetoplasma excitations dispersion has been studied.     

Collective magnetoplasma excitations in two-dimensional electron rings

The spectra of magnetoplasma excitations in two-dimensional electron disks and rings are studied by optical detection of resonance microwave absorption. For ring-shaped structures, two types of edge magnetoplasma modes localized along the inner and outer boundaries of the ring are observed. It is shown that the interaction between these modes leads to a strong modification of their magnetic-field dependences as compared to disks. In addition to the longitudinal edge magnetoplasma excitations, transverse plasma modes associated with the electron density oscillations along the ring radius are revealed. The spectra of magnetoplasma excitations are calculated in terms of the electrodynamic theory for both ring-shaped and disk-shaped structures. The classification of all modes of collective magnetoplasma excitations observed in the experiment is performed on the basis of the comparison between experimental and theoretical results.     

Acoustic magnetoplasma excitations in double electron layers

The inelastic light scattering technique is used to study the spectra of intraband excitations of the quasi-two-dimensional electron system in GaAS/AlGaAs double quantum wells. A new collective mode, namely, the acoustic plasmon, is discovered and investigated. The dispersion law of the acoustic mode and its dependence on the electron density are measured. It is shown that, in a perpendicular magnetic field, a hybridization of the acoustic plasmon with the cyclotron mode takes place. The properties of the hybrid acoustic magnetoplasma collective excitations are studied.     

Dispersion of volume relativistic magnetoplasma excitation in a gated two-dimensional electron system

The dispersion of the volume relativistic magnetoplasma mode in a gated GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well is measured using a coupled resonators detection technique. The weakly damped relativistic mode exhibits an unusual zigzag-shaped magnetodispersion dependence dictated by the diagonal component of the resistivity tensor ρ_xx. The plasma excitation easily hybridizes with photon modes due to a large spatial delocalization of its electromagnetic field. The effects of electron density and structure geometry on the excitation spectrum have been investigated.     

Raman spectroscopy of magnetoplasma excitations in a system of two-dimensional electrons in inclined and parallel magnetic fields

The dispersion of magnetoplasma excitations of two-dimensional electrons in oblique and parallel magnetic fields is investigated by the method of Raman scattering of light. The inclination of the field is used to distinguish the signals due to volume hot luminescence from the signals due to Raman scattering by two-dimensional electrons. The dependence of the magnetoplasmon energy on the inclination angle of the field is measured for different momentum transfers. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 63, No. 12, 974–978 (25 June 1996)     

Occurrence of a gap in the spectrum of magnetoplasma excitations of a two-dimensional electron disk subjected to a strong in-plane magnetic field

The effect of a parallel magnetic field on the dispersion of bulk and edge magnetoplasmons in a disk-shaped two-dimensional electron system is investigated. It is found that the anisotropy of the electron effective mass that appears in a parallel magnetic field lifts the degeneracy of plasma oscillations in the disk. This is accompanied by the occurrence of a gap in the spectrum of magnetoplasmons, and the magnetic dispersion of these excitations changes from a linear to a parabolic one. The width of the gap is determined by the difference between the frequencies of plasma oscillations along the field and transverse to the field and grows quadratically with the in-plane field strength.     

Inelastic light scattering by electron excitations with large wave vectors in a 2D magnetoplasma

Microscopic mechanisms of inelastic light scattering in an interacting electron plasma in semiconductor heterostructures are considered. In the dipole limit, the cross section consists of two main contributions: the first is related to a disorder-induced mechanism and the second arises from the Coulomb interaction. The spectra of disorder-induced light scattering are described in terms of correlation functions of a random potential. The spectrum induced by the Coulomb interaction arises from two-quasiparticle excitations. The mechanisms which are studied in this paper result in the appearance of large wave vector excitations in the spectra of resonant light scattering. These results can be used to model the experimentally observed appearance of the roton density of states in light scattering spectra in the integer quantum Hall regime of a two-dimensional system. Furthermore, we show that the lineshape of spectra strongly depends on the character of disorder and, in particular, on the spatial positions of impurities with respect to a quantum well. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 112, 1041–1054 (September 1997) Published in English in the original Russian journal. Reproduced here with stylistic changes by the Translation Editor.     

Explosive and solitary excitations in a very dense magnetoplasma

A two-component dense magnetoplasma consisting of ions and degenerate electrons is considered. The basic set of hydrodynamic and Poisson equations are reduced to the Zakharov-Kuznetsov (ZK) equation by using the reductive perturbation technique. The basic features of the electrostatic excitations are investigated by applying a new direct method to the ZK equation. It is found that the latter has new solutions, which admit the propagation of either solitary or explosive pulses. The relevance of the new direct method to other nonlinear partial differential equations is also discussed.     

Nonlocal effects in a two-dimensional electron gas with a periodic lattice of scatterers

The nonlocal resistance of a two-dimensional electron gas in a periodic lattice of antidots is investigated. Anomalous growth of this resistance is observed when 2R _c ≈d (R _c is the Larmor radius). This growth is caused by the appearance of runaway trajectories, skipping along the antidots and running away along the rows of antidots. It is shown on the basis of a comparative analysis of the local and nonlocal magnetoresistance that the character of the electronic billiard trajectories corresponds to the characteristic features of magnetotransport. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 63, No. 5, 336–341 (10 March 1996)     

Lateral tunneling through the controlled barrier between edge channels in a two-dimensional electron system

A study is made of the lateral tunneling between edge channels at the depletion-induced edges of a gated two-dimensional electron system, through a gate-voltage-controlled barrier arising when the donor layer of the heterostructure is partly removed along a fine strip by means of an atomic force microscope. For a sufficiently high barrier the typical current-voltage characteristic is found to be strongly asymmetric, having, in addition to the positive tunneling branch, a negative branch that corresponds to the current overflowing the barrier. It is established that the barrier height depends linearly on both the gate voltage and the magnetic field, and the data are described in terms of electron tunneling between the outermost edge channels. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 69, No. 8, 561–566 (25 April 1999) Published in English in the original Russian journal. Edited by Steve Torstveit.     

Spin edge states in two-dimensional electron systems

We consider the spin edge states, induced by the combined effect of spin-orbit interaction and hard-wall confining potential, in a two-dimensional electron system exposed to a perpendicular quantizing magnetic field. We derive an exact analytical formula for the dispersion relations of spin edge states and analyze their energy spectrum, velocity, and average transverse position. It is shown that by removing the spin degeneracy, spin-orbit interaction splits the spin edge states not only in the energy but also induces their spatial separation. It is revealed that at low magnetic fields, due to the Stark splitting of the spin-resolved edge states, the high-energy bands exhibit anti-crossings. This results in an additional structure in the behavior of the velocity of current-carrying edge states.     

Spectrum of polariton excitations of a two-dimensional electron plasma in a magnetic field

Polariton excitations associated with magnetoplasma and cyclotron oscillations in a two-dimensional (2D) electron plasma are studied. In contrast to previous works by other authors, it is concluded that there exists a low-frequency nontransmission band in the spectrum of 2D surface magnetoplasma polaritons. Radiative polariton excitations associated with nonuniform cyclotron oscillations of electrons in a 2D system are investigated. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 68, No. 3, 200–204 (10 August 1998)