Superlattices and Microstructures, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1991 11 9
ANISOTROPIC MAGNETOTRANSPORT IN AN ANTIWIRE
ARRAY INSERTED IN A GAAS HETEROSTRUCTURE
K. Ensslin, S. A. Chalmers, P. M. Petroff, A. C. Gossard, and H. Kroemer
Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, Ca 93106
(Received 13 August 1990)
An array of antiwires is prepared in GaAs/A1GaAs heterostructures by using the
tilted superlattice approach. A regular two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is
grown on a 2° off axis (100) substrate. Half a monolayer of AlAs is inserted close
to the GaAs/A1GaAs interface ordering itself along the step edges. Therefore an
antiwire array is formed which directly influences the envelope wavefunction of the
two--dimensionalelectrons. Low temperature magnetotransport measurements with
current flow parallel and perpendicular to the wires reveal a pronounced anisotropy
in the magnetoresistance Pxx of the carriers. The value of Pxx/(B--0) for current
flow perpendicular to the antiwires is larger than Pxxll. The anisotropy increases
with increasing carrier density in agreement with the formation of Bloch bands due
to the periodicity of the antiwire array. For high magnetic fields B>2T the minima
of the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations for Pxx-1-and Pxxll occur at the same fields
indicating the homogeneity of the 2DEG. For low magnetic fields B=0.5T we
observe a maximum in Pxx± while Pxxll stays constant. The Hall resistances Pxy ±
and Pxyll are indistinguishable from each other for all ranges of B and Ns.
Current transport in one-dimensional (1D) quantum
wires is an interesting problem in fund.anaen _t_t_al_phyuiocsl~2
and has important implicauons on aewce appm:n v ~ .
Usually a quantum wire is represented by an attractive
wire-like potential which is surrounded by potential
barriers in two dimensions. Here we present the
interesting approach of a repulsive wire like potential
which is imbedded in a two-dimensional electron gas
(2DEG). This structure is promising for the investigation
of lateral superlattice effects as well as confinement
effects depending on the parameters of the antiwire array
and the 2DEG. A si/nilar structure has been investigated
by Motohisa et al. ,4 in the regime of very low magnetic
fields. Our structure is realized by growing a
conventional modulation-doped GaAs-A1GaAs
heterostructure on a vicinal GaAs substrate, tilted by 2 °
from the (100) axis. The repulsive potential is formed by
inserting half a monolayer of AlAs 4nm below the
GaAs/AIGaAs interface using the step flow growth
mode. In this paper we present low-temperature high-
magnetic field measurements with current flow along (11)
and perpendicular (.1_)to the antiwires. The longitudinal
magnetoresistance Pxx shows a pronounced anisotropy
Pxx± > Pxxll for all magnetic fields. For increasing bias
on the front gate electrode we find an increase of the
anisotropy with increasing carder density in qualitative
agreement with the formation of Bloch-bands due to the
periodicity of the antiwire array. The minima of the
Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations occur at the same
field for both directions of current flow indicating the
homogeneity and quality of our 2DEG. The carrier
densities Ns deduced from the periodicity of the SdH
oscillations agree nicely with the values obtained from
Hall measurements. For low magnetic fields B=0.9T a
maximum in Pxx J- is found while Pxxl] decreases
monotonically with increasing B. This effect might be
due to the formation of a lateral surface superlattice.
The GaAs-A1GaAs heterostructures are ,grown by
MBE with the following growth sequence: ~ a semi-
insulating substrate misoriented by 2 ° from the (100)
direction, 1.) a300 nm buffer layer, 2.) 4 nm of GaAs
by migration enhanced epitaxy (MEE), 3.) half a
monolayer of AlAs, 4.) 4 nm GaAs, 5.) 5 nm AIGaAs
spaces^ 6.) ~0 nm Si-doped A10.3Ga0.7As (ND =
lxl01acm -~) and 7.) a 10 nm GaAs cap layer. At T
0749-6036/91/010119+03 S02.00/0 © 1991 Academic Press Limited