Magnetotransport properties of lateral-surface superlattices by molecular-dynamics Monte Carlo simulation.

Abstract

The magnetotransport properties of a lateral-surface superlattice, a two-dimensional (2D) electron system in a 2D periodic potential, are studied with use of a Monte Carlo technique, where the effect of the magnetic field is included through a Lorentz force and the interparticle Coulomb interaction is included with a molecular-dynamics method. Excellent numerical energy conservation is achieved by adopting a predictor-corrector algorithm to integrate the equations of motion. The simulation shows that the diffusion constant, as a function of the magnetic field, is not a simple monotone function but has a structure with multiple minima. This structure is attributed to the correlated circular electron motion, and this is reminiscent of classical pinning orbits in a 2D antidot array, even in the presence of the Coulomb interaction. The radial-distribution function shows no significant dependence upon the magnetic field up to ten flux quanta per unit cell.