Ratchet transport of a two-dimensional electron gas at cyclotron resonance

Abstract

The driving of charge carriers confined in a quantum well lacking the center of space inversion by an alternating electric field leads to the formation of a direct electric current. We develop a microscopic theory of such a quantum ratchet effect for quantum wells subjected to a static magnetic field. We show that the ratchet current emerges for a linearly polarized alternating electric field as well as a rotating electric field and drastically increases at the cyclotron resonance conditions. For the magnetic field tilted with respect to the quantum well normal, the ratchet current contains an additional resonance at the first subharmonic of the cyclotron resonance.