Joule heating and electronic Gurzhi effect in hydrodynamic differential transport in an electron liquid

TL;DR

This study investigates how Joule heating influences differential resistance in a hydrodynamic electron liquid, revealing a temperature-dependent viscosity resistivity consistent with the electronic Gurzhi effect in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence linking Joule heating to the electronic Gurzhi effect and characterizes the viscosity resistivity's temperature dependence in hydrodynamic electron transport.

Findings

Joule heating causes a resistance valley in nonlinear transport.

Viscosity resistivity scales as T^{-2} with temperature.

Electronic Gurzhi effect observed across different measurement configurations.

Abstract

We perform a differential resistance study in the hydrodynamic regime of electron liquid in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells. At zero magnetic field ($B$) a Lorentzian profile occurs in the nonlinear transport driven by a U-turn (ac) current loop, in (ac + dc) measurements a minimum deepens with the external dc current bias ($j_{dc}$). Our analysis shows that the observed electronic transport valley induced by $j_{dc}$ is attributed to Joule heating effect on the electron temperature ($T_{e}$) of electron liquid. Quantitatively, we demonstrate that the viscosity resistivity ($\Delta \rho$) is proportional to $T^{-2}$ and is consistent with the dc-current induced electronic Gurzhi effect in various configurations of measurement.