Quantum electron lifetime in GaAs quantum wells with three populated subbands

Scott Dietrich, Jesse Kanter, William Mayer, Sergey Vitkalov, D. V. Dmitriev, and A. A. Bykov
Phys. Rev. B 92, 155411 – Published 8 October 2015

Abstract

The magnetotransport of highly mobile two-dimensional electrons is studied in GaAs single quantum wells with three occupied subbands. The bottoms of the lower two subbands have nearly the same energy while the bottom of the third subband has a much higher energy (E1E2E3). Magnetointersubband oscillations (MISOs) between the ith and jth subbands are observed and obey the relation Δij=EjEi=lωc, where ωc is the cyclotron frequency and l is an integer. The slight difference in the energies of the lower subbands produces noticeable interference effects in the magnetoresistance. In contrast to the case of two populated subbands, by analyzing the amplitude of each component of the MISOs separately, the quantum lifetime τq(i) of electrons in the ith subband is extracted. The studies show that τq(1)τq(2)=τq(1,2). The temperature variation of 1/τq(1,2) is found to be proportional to T2, indicating that the electron-electron interaction is the dominant source of the decrease of the electron lifetime at high temperatures. Different temperature dependence of the quantum scattering rate is found in the third subband, δ(1/τq(3))T, which is consistent with the theory of sparsely populated subbands.

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  • Received 10 August 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.155411

©2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Scott Dietrich, Jesse Kanter, William Mayer, and Sergey Vitkalov*

  • Physics Department, City College of the City University of New York, New York 10031, USA

D. V. Dmitriev

  • A. V. Rzhanov Institute of Semiconductor Physics, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia

A. A. Bykov

  • A. V. Rzhanov Institute of Semiconductor Physics, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia, and Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia

  • *Corresponding author: vitkalov@sci.ccny.cuny.edu

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Issue

Vol. 92, Iss. 15 — 15 October 2015

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