Electric field induced oscillating electron mobility in asymmetric wide GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs quantum well structure

For the first time, we show that an oscillatory enhancement of low temperature electron mobility mu can be achieved in an asymmetric GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs wide quantum well structure by applying an external electric field F perpendicular to the interface plane. We show that the oscillating nature of mu as a function of F is mostly due to the contribution of the higher subband through intersubband effects when there is double subband occupancy. We further show that the wavy nature of mu can be enhanced by increasing the well width, surface electron density, and also by considering a double quantum well structure. Our results can be utilized for low temperature device applications. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.