Inter-Landau-level transitions of resonantly tunnelling electrons in tilted magnetic fields

Abstract

The effect of a tilted magnetic field on the current-voltage characteristics of an n-type double barrier resonant tunnelling device based on GaAs/(AlGa)As is investigated. The component of magnetic field perpendicular to the tunnelling barriers quantizes the electronic states of the quantum well and emitter accumulation layer into discrete Landau levels. The effect of the component parallel to the barriers is to allow tunnelling transitions in which the Landau level index is not conserved. This gives rise to a spitting of the resonant peak in the current-voltage curve into a series of equally spaced sub-peaks. These features are explained using the sequential theory of resonant tunnelling and treating the effect of the transverse component of magnetic field in a perturbation approximation.