Anisotropic conductivity and weak localization in HgTe quantum wells with a normal energy spectrum

Abstract

The results of experimental study of interference induced magnetoconductivity in narrow quantum well HgTe with a normal energy spectrum are presented. Analysis is performed by taking into account the conductivity anisotropy. It is shown that the fitting parameter τφ corresponding to the phase relaxation time increases in magnitude with the increasing conductivity (σ) and decreasing temperature following the 1/T law. Such a behavior is analogous to that observed in the usual two-dimensional systems with a simple energy spectrum and corresponds to the inelasticity of electron-electron interaction as the main mechanism of the phase relaxation. However, it drastically differs from that observed in the wide HgTe quantum wells with the inverted spectrum, in which τφ, being obtained by the same way, is practically independent of σ. It is presumed that a different structure of the electron multicomponent wave function for the inverted and normal quantum wells could be the reason for such a discrepancy. © 2013 American Physical Society.