Cyclotron resonance photoconductivity of a two-dimensional electron gas in HgTe quantum wells

TL;DR

This study investigates cyclotron resonance photoconductivity in HgTe quantum wells, revealing effective mass variations with carrier density and demonstrating CRP as a more accurate method than SdH oscillations for mass determination.

Contribution

It provides new insights into effective mass measurements in HgTe quantum wells using CRP, highlighting its accuracy over traditional methods and analyzing carrier dynamics.

Findings

CRP causes heating of 2DEG in HgTe QWs.

Effective mass increases with carrier concentration.

CRP offers more precise effective mass measurements than SdH oscillations.

Abstract

Far-infrared cyclotron resonance photoconductivity (CRP) is investigated in HgTe quantum wells (QWs) of various widths grown on (013) oriented GaAs substrates. It is shown that CRP is caused by the heating of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). From the resonance magnetic field strength effective masses and their dependence on the carrier concentration is obtained. We found that the effective mass in each sample slightly increases from the value (0.0260 \pm 0.0005)m_0 at N_s = 2.2x10^11 cm^(-2) to (0.0335 \pm 0.0005)m_0 at N_s = 9.6x10^11 cm^(-2). Compared to determination of effective masses by the temperature dependence of magnitudes of the Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations used so far in this material our measurements demonstrate that the CRP provides a more accurate (about few percents) tool. Combining optical methods with transport measurements we found that the transport time substantially exceeds the cyclotron resonance lifetime as well as the quantum lifetime which is the shortest.