Demonstration of high sensitivity of microwave-induced resistance oscillations to circular polarization

TL;DR

This study reveals that microwave-induced resistance oscillations (MIRO) are highly sensitive to circular polarization, contradicting previous beliefs of their immunity, and highlights the importance of experimental conditions in observing this effect.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that MIRO are not inherently immune to circular polarization and identifies conditions to accurately observe their polarization dependence in solid-state systems.

Findings

MIRO signal varies significantly with the sense of circular polarization.

Large MIRO response observed for cyclotron resonance active helicity.

Extrinsic factors can mask the true polarization sensitivity of MIRO.

Abstract

We demonstrate that long-debated immunity of microwave-induced resistance oscillations (MIRO) to the sense of circular polarization is not a generic property of this phenomenon in solid-state two-dimensional electron systems. Using a large-area GaAs-based heterostructure we detect up to 30 times larger MIRO signal for the cyclotron resonance (CR) active helicity, fully consistent with the concurrently measured transmission and the deduced CR shape of the Drude absorption. We further elaborate conditions to avoid extrinsic factors capable of producing an apparent immunity of the photoresponse.