Energy relaxation of two-dimensional electrons in the quantum Hall effect regime

Abstract

The mm-wave spectroscopy with high temporal resolution is used to measure the energy relaxation times τ_e of 2D electrons in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures in magnetic fields B=0–4 T under quasi-equilibrium conditions at T=4.2 K. With increasing B, a considerable increase in τe from 0.9 to 25 ns is observed. For high B and low values of the filling factor ν, the energy relaxation rate τ ⁻¹_e oscillates. The depth of these oscillations and the positions of maxima depend on the filling factor ν. For ν>5, the relaxation rate τ ⁻¹_e is maximum when the Fermi level lies in the region of the localized states between the Landau levels. For lower values of ν, the relaxation rate is maximum at half-integer values of τ ⁻¹_e when the Fermi level is coincident with the Landau level. The characteristic features of the dependence τ ⁻¹_e (B) are explained by different contributions of the intralevel and interlevel electron-phonon transitions to the process of the energy relaxation of 2D electrons.