Cyclotron resonance in (GaAs)n/(AlAs)n superlattices under ultra-high magnetic fields

We present a review on recent study of the type I to type II transition in short-period superlattices (SLs) of GaAs/AlAs by means of cyclotron resonance (CR) in pulsed high magnetic fields. The behavior of CR varies depending on the thickness of the GaAs and AlAs layers. In CR of (GaAs)_n/(AlAs)_n, the resonance peak at the X minima was observed in the type II regime for n smaller than 14, whereas the resonance at the Γ point was observed for n>15. We estimated electron masses on X and Γ point in the SLs by using the empirical sp³ tight-binding method including second-nearest-neighbor interaction. These calculations have shown good agreement with the experimental results. Moreover, it was found that the angular dependence of the CR peak position does not obey the simple cosine dependence due to the subband mixing in high magnetic fields. From the angular dependence in the SLs, the longitudinal and transverses electron masses of AlAs at the X point were deduced to be m_t=0.21m₀ and m_l=1.04m₀, respectively.