Temperature dependence and mechanism of electrically detected ESR at the n=1 filling factor of a two-dimensional electron system in GaAs quantum wells

Abstract

Electrically detected electron spin resonance (EDESR) signals were acquired as a function of temperature in the 0.3-4.2 K temperature range in a AlGaAs/GaAs multiple quantum well sample at the filling factor at 5.7 T. In the particular sample studied, the line width is approximately temperature independent, while the amplitude exhibits a maximum at about 2.2 K and vanishes with increased or decreased temperature. To explain the observed temperature dependence of the signal amplitude, the signal amplitude temperature dependence is calculated assuming a model based on heating. The model ascribes the resonant absorption of microwave power of the 2DES to the uniform mode of the electron spin magnetization where the elementary spin excitations at filling factor are taken to be spin waves, while the short wavelength spin wave modes serve as a heat sink for the absorbed energy. Due to the finite thermal conductance to the surroundings, the temperature of the 2DES spin wave system is increased, resulting in a thermal activation of the longitudinal magnetoconductance. The proposed heating model correctly predicts the location of the maximum in the experimentally observed temperature dependence of the EDESR amplitude. It also correctly predicts that the signal should vanish as the temperature is increased or decreased. The results of the present study demonstrate how experimental EDESR studies can, under appropriate conditions, provide data that can be used to discriminate between competing theories for the magnetic ordering and magnetic excitations of a 2DES in the regime of the quantum Hall effect.