On the Cooling of Electrons in a Silicon Inversion Layer

Abstract

The cooling of two-dimensional electrons in silicon-metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistors is studied experimentally. Cooling to the lattice is found to be more effective than expected from the bulk electron-phonon coupling in silicon. Unexpectedly, the extracted heat transfer rate to phonons at low temperatures depends cubically on electron temperature, suggesting that piezoelectric coupling (absent in bulk silicon) dominates over deformation potential. According to our findings, at 100 mK, electrons farther than 0.1 mm from the contacts are mostly cooled by phonons. Using long devices and low excitation voltage we measure electron resistivity down to 100 mK and find that some of the "metallic" curves, reported earlier, turn insulating below about 300 mK. This finding renders the definition of the claimed 2D metal-insulator transition questionable. Previous low temperature measurements in silicon devices are analyzed and thumb rules for evaluating their electron temperatures are provided.

5 pages, 4 figures. Discussion corrected and a few references added

References in corpus (1)

• Fermi-liquid behaviour of the low-density 2D hole gas in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure at large values of r_s

Cited by in corpus (24)

• Metal-insulator transition in two-dimensional electron systems
• The thermodynamic spin magnetization of strongly correlated 2d electrons in a silicon inversion layer
• Strongly correlated two-dimensional plasma explored from entropy measurements
• A low density finite temperature apparent "insulating" phase in 2D systems
• Interaction Effects in Conductivity of a Two-Valley Electron System in High-Mobility Si Inversion Layers
• Electron-electron interaction correction and magnetoresistance in tilted fields in Si-based 2D systems
• Strongly Enhanced Hole-Phonon Coupling in the Metallic State of the Dilute Two-Dimensional Hole Gas
• The energy scale behind the metallic behaviors in low-density Si-MOSFETs
• Coherent back-scattering near the two-dimensional metal-insulator transition
• Intervalley-Scattering Induced Electron-Phonon Energy Relaxation in Many-Valley Semiconductors at Low Temperatures
• Probing Electron Interactions in a Two-Dimensional System by Quantum Magneto-Oscillations
• Signatures of localization in the effective metallic regime of high mobility Si MOSFETs
• Probing spin susceptibility of a correlated two-dimensional electron system by transport and magnetization measurements
• Electron-phonon interaction via Pekar mechanism in nanostructures
• Interaction Correction to the Longitudinal Conductivity and Hall Resistivity in High Quality Two-Dimensional GaAs Electron and Hole Systems
• Overlapping-gate architecture for silicon Hall bar MOSFET devices in the low electron density regime
• Anderson localization crossover in 2D Si systems: The past and the present
• Temperature dependent nonlinear Hall effect in macroscopic Si-MOS antidot array
• Termination of two-dimensional metallic conduction near metal-insulator transition in a Si/SiGe quantum well
• Phase Separation in Two-Dimensional Electron Systems: Experimental View
• Cooling of cryogenic electron bilayers via the Coulomb interaction
• On-chip quantum confinement refrigeration overcoming electron-phonon heat leaks
• Flicker Noise in Two-Dimensional Electron Gas
• In-plane magnetic field dependence of cyclotron relaxation time in a Si two-dimensional electron system