Nonequilibrium Magnetization of a Two-Dimensional Electron Gas in a Static Magnetic Field

Abstract

Using a sensitive DC torque magnetometer we measure the orbital magnetization by sweeping the density at fixed magnetic fields on GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructures. At low temperatures strong nonequilibrium magnetization signals dominate the data. In literature the observation of nonequilibrium signals are often associated with eddy currents generated by sweeping the magnetic field. The elimination of a changing magnetic field then poses a question regarding the origin of these signals. Our data suggests another source of nonequilibrium magnetization potentially due to the change of area occupied by compressible and incompressible states as one sweeps the Fermi energy from one Landau level to the next.