Orbital effects of a strong in-plane magnetic field on a gate-defined quantum dot

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical framework for understanding how a strong in-plane magnetic field influences the orbital spectrum of a quantum dot in a 2DEG, enabling extraction of structural and electronic properties from experimental data.

Contribution

The authors derive an effective 2D Hamiltonian incorporating orbital effects of in-plane magnetic fields, applicable to various heterostructure potentials, and demonstrate how to extract physical information from experimental measurements.

Findings

Effective Hamiltonian for in-plane magnetic field effects

Method to extract heterostructure and quantum dot parameters

Application to recent experimental data

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the orbital effects of an in-plane magnetic field on the spectrum of a quantum dot embedded in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). We derive an effective two-dimensional Hamiltonian where these effects enter in proportion to the flux penetrating the 2DEG. We quantify the latter in detail for harmonic, triangular, and square potential of the heterostructure. We show how the orbital effects allow one to extract a wealth of information, for example, on the heterostructure interface, the quantum dot size and orientation, and the spin-orbit fields. We illustrate the formalism by extracting this information from recent measured data [L.~C.~Camenzind, et al., arXiv:1804.00162; Nat. Commun. 9, 3454 (2018)].