Strain-induced resistance anisotropy of GaAs two-dimensional electrons

ORAL

Abstract

We report strain-dependent low temperature magnetotransport measurements of two-dimensional electrons confined in GaAs single quantum wells. The samples are mounted to a piezoelectric-based strain device with which we can apply, and vary, tensile strain in the quantum well in situ. With this apparatus we have achieved strain as large as ~0.3% in GaAs quantum wells at cryogenic temperatures. We find that with increasing strain the magnetoresistance of the two-dimensional electron system confined in the quantum well becomes anisotropic relative to the principle in-plane axes of the host crystal. Additionally, we find that this strain-induced resistance anisotropy exhibits hysteresis in the vicinity of Landau Level filling factor ν=5/2.

*The UC Irvine portion of the work is supported by NSF Grant No. DMR-1350122.

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Presenters

  • Alexander Stern

    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Univ of California - Irvine

Authors

  • Alexander Stern

    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Univ of California - Irvine

  • Johannes Pollanen

    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University
    • Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State Univ
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State Univ
    • Michigan State Univ

  • James Eisenstein

    • Condensed Matter Physics, California Institute of Technology

  • K West

    • Electrical Engineering, princeton university
    • Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University
    • Princeton University
    • Univ of Basel
    • Princeton Univ
    • Electrical Engineering, Princeton Univ
    • EE, Princeton University

  • Loren Pfeiffer

    • Electrical Engineering, princeton university
    • Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University
    • Princeton University
    • Princeton Univ
    • Electrical Engineering, Princeton Univ
    • EE, Princeton University

  • Jing Xia

    • Physics and Astronomy, Univ of California - Irvine
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Univ of California - Irvine
    • University of California Irvine
    • Department of Physics, University of California, Irvine
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine