Transport and single-particle relaxation times of a deformed wavefunction in a back-gated GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructure

Abstract

Transport and single-particle relaxation times are calculated for a two-dimensional electron gas in a back-gated GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructure, in which the electron wavefunction is deformed by the back gate. Coulomb scattering due to remote, spacer and channel ionized impurities is considered separately. It found that when the wavefunction is squeezed by the back gate, the spacer impurity scattering gives rise to the largest reduction in the ratio between those relaxation times. Channel impurity scattering-limited relaxation time increases as the wavefunction is more compressed. The temperature dependences of these quantities are also discussed.