Density dependence of the excitation gaps in an undoped Si/SiGe double-quantum-well heterostructure

Abstract

We report low-temperature magneto-transport measurements of an undoped Si/SiGe asymmetric double quantum well heterostructure. The density in both layers is tuned independently utilizing top and bottom gates, allowing the investigation of quantum wells at both imbalanced and matched densities. Integer quantum Hall states at total filling factor νT=1 and νT=2 are observed in both density regimes, and the evolution of their excitation gaps is reported as a function of the density. The νT=1 gap evolution departs from the behavior generally observed for valley splitting in the single layer regime. Furthermore, by comparing the νT=2 gap to the single particle tunneling energy, ΔSAS, obtained from Schrödinger–Poisson (SP) simulations, evidence for the onset of spontaneous interlayer coherence is observed for a relative filling fraction imbalance smaller than ∼50%.