Multi-Valley Physics of Two-Dimensional Electron Systemson Hydrogen-Terminated Silicon (111) Surfaces

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorKane, Bruce Een_US
dc.contributor.advisorDrew, Howard Den_US
dc.contributor.authorMcFarland, Robert Nicholasen_US
dc.contributor.departmentPhysicsen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2010-10-07T05:31:06Z
dc.date.available2010-10-07T05:31:06Z
dc.date.issued2010en_US
dc.description.abstractRecent work on two dimensional electron systems (2DES) has focused increasingly on understanding the way the presence of additional degrees of freedom (e.g. spin, valleys, subbands, and multiple charge layers) affect transport as such effects may be critical to the development of nanoscale and quantum devices and may lead to the discovery of new physics . In particular, conduction band valley degeneracy opens up a rich parameter space for observing and controlling 2DES behavior. Among such systems, electrons on the (111) surface of silicon are especially notable because effective mass theory predicts the conduction band to be sixfold degenerate, for a total degeneracy (spin &times;valley) of 12 in the absence of a magnetic field B. Previous investigations of Si(111) transport using Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) observed a valley degeneracy g<sub>v</sub> of 2 except in certain specially prepared samples with low mobility. We have developed a novel device architecture for investigating transport on a H-Si(111)-vacuum interface free from the complications created by intrinsic disorder at Si-SiO<sub>2</sub> interfaces. The resulting devices display very high mobilities (up to 110,000 cm<super>2</super>/Vs at 70 mK, more than twice as large as the best silicon MOSFETs), enabling us to probe valley-dependent transport to a much greater degree than previously possible. In particular, we observed detailed Integer Quantum Hall structure with hints of Fractional states as well. These devices display clear evidence of six occupied valleys, including strongly &ldquo;metallic&rdquo; temperature dependence expected for large g<sub>v</sub>. Some devices show strong sixfold degeneracy while others display a partial lifting of the degeneracy, resulting in unequal distribution of electrons among the six valleys. This symmetry breaking results in anisotropic transport at low B fields, but other observed anisotropies remain unexplained. Finally, we apply this unusual valley structure to show how corrections to the low-B magnetoresistance and Hall effect can provide information about valley-valley interactions. We propose a model of valley drag, similar to Coulomb drag in bilayer systems, and find good agreement with our experimental data, though a small residual drag in the T&rarr;0 limit remains unexplained.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/10755
dc.subject.pqcontrolledPhysics, Condensed Matteren_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolled2DESen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledmagneto-transporten_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledQuantum Hall Effecten_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledsilicon (111)en_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledvalley degeneracyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledvalley dragen_US
dc.titleMulti-Valley Physics of Two-Dimensional Electron Systemson Hydrogen-Terminated Silicon (111) Surfacesen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
McFarland_umd_0117E_11271.pdf
Size:
7.11 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

UMD Theses and Dissertations
Physics Theses and Dissertations