Electrical and thermal properties of a two-dimensional electron gas in a one-dimensional periodic potential

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Abstract

We investigate the influence of a periodic weak modulation along the x direction on the electrical and thermal properties of a two-dimensional electron gas in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field. The modulation lifts the degeneracy of the Landau levels and leads to one-dimensional magnetic bands whose bandwidth oscillates as a function of the magnetic field. At weak magnetic fields this gives rise to the Weiss oscillations in the magnetoresistance, discovered recently, which have a very weakly temperature-dependent amplitude and a period proportional to \ensuremath{\surd}${\mathit{n}}_{\mathit{e}}$ , when ${\mathit{n}}_{\mathit{e}}$ is the electron density. Diffusion-current contributions, proportional to the square of the bandwidth, dominate ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{\mathit{x}\mathit{x}}$, and collisional contributions, varying approximately as the square of the density of states, dominate ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{\mathit{y}\mathit{y}}$. The result is that ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{\mathit{x}\mathit{x}}$ and ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{\mathit{y}\mathit{y}}$ oscillate out of phase as observed. Asymptotic analytical expressions are presented for the conductivity tensor. Similar oscillations, of much smaller amplitude, occur in the thermodynamic quantities, such as the magnetization, the susceptibility, and the specific heat. We also predict oscillations in the Hall resistance, the cyclotron resonance position, the linewidth, as well as in the thermal conductivity and thermopower. The components of the thermal-resistance tensor have a magnetic-field dependence similar to that of the electrical-resistivity tensor.

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