Exponential suppression of interlayer conductivity in very anisotropic quasi-two-dimensional compounds in high magnetic field

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical model explaining the exponential suppression of interlayer conductivity in highly anisotropic quasi-two-dimensional compounds under strong magnetic fields, aligning well with experimental observations.

Contribution

The study introduces a new theoretical framework describing how Coulomb barriers from polaron formation exponentially damp interlayer electron conductivity in high magnetic fields.

Findings

The model accurately predicts temperature and magnetic field dependence of interlayer magnetoresistance.

Results agree with experimental data from GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures.

The theory enables using interlayer magnetoresistance to probe localized electron states.

Abstract

It is shown that in rather strong magnetic field the interlayer electron conductivity is exponentially damped by the Coulomb barrier arising from the formation of polaron around each localized electron state. The theoretical model is developed to describe this effect, and the calculation of the temperature and field dependence of interlayer magnetoresistance is performed. The results obtained agree well with the experimental data in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures and in strongly anisotropic organic metals. The proposed theory allows to use the experiments on interlayer magnetoresistance to investigate the electron states, localized by magnetic field and disorder.