Electron scattering in quantum wells subjected to an in-plane magnetic field

Abstract

It is shown that the electron scattering by static defects, acoustic or optical phonons in quantum wells subjected to an in-plane magnetic field is asymmetric. The probability of scattering contains terms which are proportional to both the electron wave vector and the magnetic field components.The terms under study are caused by the lack of an inversion center in quantum wells due to structure or bulk inversion asymmetry although they are of pure diamagnetic origin. Such a magnetic field induced asymmetry of scattering can be responsible for a number of phenomena. In particular, the asymmetry of inelastic electron-phonon interaction leads to an electric current flow if only the electron gas is driven out of thermal equilibrium with the crystal lattice.

Magnetic quantum ratchet effect in Si-MOSFETs

“…Taking into account the admixture of excited-subband states to the groundsubband wave function in the in-plane magnetic field B, one obtains the matrix element of electron scattering [27] …”

“…Such a correction is allowed in gyrotropic structures only and, in Si-MOSFETs, is caused by structure inversion asymmetry of inversion channels. It can be obtained microscopically by considering the magnetic field induced change of the electron wave function, which yields [27] …”

“…This contribution depends on the details of electron-phonon scattering and was theoretically addressed in Refs. [26,27].…”

“…Both mechanisms are of a pure orbital origin and based on the asymmetry of electron scattering by static defects or phonons in the momentum space [19,26,27]. The scattering asymmetry is caused by the Lorentz force acting upon carriers in inversion channels.…”

Interplay of spin and orbital magnetogyrotropic photogalvanic effects in InSb/(Al,In)Sb quantum well structures

“…By contrast, the CMPGE remains linear in the whole range of investigated magnetic fields. The experimental results are analyzed in terms of spin [27][28][29] and orbital [29][30][31] microscopic models of the magnetogyrotropic photogalvanic effect based on the asymmetry of the relaxation of carriers in the momentum space. We demonstrate that specific magnetic field dependences observed for the LMPGE are due to the nonlinear Zeeman spin splitting in InSb/(Al,In)Sb QWs, which is enhanced by the electron-electron exchange interaction and causes a nonlinear increase of the spin-related MPGE.…”