Magnetic thaw down and boil-off of electrons in the quantum Hall effect regime due to magnetoacceptors in GaAs/GaAlAs heterostructures

The quantum Hall effect (QHE) and the Shubnikov-de Haas effect in the QHE regime are investigated experimentally using modulation doped n-type GaAs/GaAlAs quantum wells additionally doped in the well with beryllium. It is known that acceptor states introduced by Be atoms have a localized character in the conduction band due to a combined effect of the well and a magnetic field parallel to the growth direction and that they possess discrete energies above the corresponding conduction Landau levels. It is presently shown that the localized magnetoacceptor (MA) states lead to two observable effects in magnetotransport in the ultraquantum limit: magnetic thaw down and magnetic boil-off of two-dimensional (2D) electrons. Both effects are related to the fact that electrons occupying localized MA states cannot conduct. Thus in the thaw down effect the electrons fall down from the MA states to the free Landau states, which leads to a shift of the Hall plateau toward higher magnetic fields as a consequence of an increase of the 2D electron density N-s. In the boil-off effect the electrons are pushed from the free Landau states to the MA states which leads to a dramatic increase of resistance, as a consequence of the decrease of N-s. Differences between the above effects and those induced by magnetodonors in 2D systems are emphasized. We analyze the magnetic boil-off effect theoretically assuming that it is caused by the quantum Hall electric field present in our experiments. It is demonstrated that a sufficiently strong electric field in the crossed-field configuration can indeed populate localized MA states above the Landau levels.