The effect of an intense terahertz irradiation on magneto-miniband transport in semiconductor superlattices

We study the miniband conduction of electrons in GaAs-based superlattices under an intense terahertz field and a longitudinal magnetic field based on balance equations for THz-driven transport. The linear mobility with small direct-current fields and the drift velocity and the electron temperature at high electric fields are calculated, under the influence of an intense THz radiation, as functions of the magnetic field. Impurity, acoustic, and polar-optical-phonon scatterings are taken into account and as many as 31 Landau levels are included in the treatment. We find that in the linear case an intense THz field greatly changes the behaviour of the mobility versus the magnetic field, giving rise to multiphoton-magnetophonon resonance. In the nonlinear case, the irradiation of an intense THz field may eliminate the magnetic field quenching of the drift velocity, which shows up at a certain high strength of the magnetic field in the absence of the THz radiation.