Nuclear spin dynamics in [001] AlAs quantum well in the regime of integer and fractional quantum Hall effect

Abstract

Relaxation of nuclear spins located in the vicinity of 2D electron system confined in a 16 nm [001] AlAs/AlGaAs quantum well was studied with the aid of electron spin resonance (ESR) in the regime of integer and fractional quantum Hall effect. Nuclear spin-lattice relaxation time τ was measured from the time decay of the Overhauser shift near different filling factors of the electron system. The resultant dependence of τ on filling factor turned out to be nontrivial. At the temperature 1.5 K τ reached its maximal value at the exact filling ν = 1 and decreased when ν was altered, yet this maximum vanished when the system was cooled down to 0.5 K. The fractional quantum Hall effect state at the filling of 2∕3 was formed at the temperature of 0.5 K, and the development of this state was accompanied by the slowing of the nuclear spin relaxation. This observation suggests the enhancement of energy gap in the spin excitation spectrum of two-dimensional electrons at 2/3 state.