Scattering mechanisms in state-of-the-art GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells

Abstract

Motivated by recent breakthrough in molecular beam epitaxy of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells [Y. J. Chung \textit{et al.}, Nature Materials \textbf{20}, 632 (2021)], we examine contributions to mobility and quantum mobility from various scattering mechanisms and their dependencies on the electron density. We find that at lower electron densities, $n_e\lesssim 1\times 10^{11}$ cm${}^{-2}$, both transport and quantum mobility are limited by unintentional background impurities and follow a power law dependence, $\propto n_e^{\alpha }$, with $\alpha \approx 0.85$. Our predictions for quantum mobility are in reasonable agreement with an estimate obtained from the resistivity at filling factor $\nu =1/2$ in a sample of Y. J. Chung \textit{et al.} with $n_e=1\times 10^{11}$ cm${}^{-2}$. Consideration of other scattering mechanisms indicates that interface roughness (remote donors) is a likely limiting factor of transport (quantum) mobility at higher electron densities. Future measurements of quantum mobility should yield information on the distribution of background impurities in GaAs and AlGaAs.

arXiv comment4 pages, 3 figures + 3 pages supplementary materials

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