Antisymmetric contribution to the magnetoresistance of heterostructures in a parallel magnetic field

Abstract

An anisotropy of the magnetoresistance with respect to the direction of the current is observed experimentally when the magnetic field lies in the plane of a two-dimensional system and is perpendicular to the direction of the current. This effect is related to the combined action of the Lorentz force, which causes a shift in the peak of the electron density from the center to different walls of a quantum well for opposite directions of the current, and to a difference in the contributions of scatterers from different sides of the quantum well to the resistance. It is shown that the difference between the resistances for different directions of the current is an effect with odd parity with respect to the direction of the magnetic field and that the magnitude of this effect increases as the current is raised. The behavior of the differences in the resistance for different directions of the current is observed as a function of the magnetic field strength and current. It is shown that the sign of this effect provides information on the ratio of the scattering intensities from the substrate side and the surface.