Physica B 269 (1999) 28}33

The e!ect of high Landau subbands "lling on the hot-electron

magneto-transport ultrafast transient in InSb
E.W.S. Caetano , E.A. Mendes
, V.N. Freire *, J.A.P. da Costa
, X.L. Lei
Departamento de Fn& sica, Universidade Federal do Ceara& , Caixa Postal 6030, Campus do Pici, 60455-760 Fortaleza, Ceara& , Brazil

Departamento de Fn& sica Teo& rica e Experimental, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Caixa Postal 1641, 59072-970 Natal,
Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
Shanghai Institute of Metallurgy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 865 Changning Road, Shanghai 200 050, People's Republic of China

Received 8 July 1998; received in revised form 1 December 1998; accepted 9 December 1998

Abstract

The e!ect of high Landau subbands "lling on the ultrafast hot-electron magneto-transport transient in InSb subjected
to high parallel magnetic and electric "elds is studied. The overshoot in the electron drift velocity calculated considering
the "lling of all possible high Landau subbands is shown to be smaller than that calculated when the extreme-quantum-
limit assumption is taken into account, and can even be precluded at small electric "elds if the magnetic "eld intensity is
high enough.  1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Hot electron; Landau quantization; Magnetic "eld

1. Introduction electrons. On the other hand, when high Landau

Hot-electron high-magnetic-"eld transport in
semiconductors is an interesting research subject
because both the high electric "eld and the Landau
quantization of the energy bands have to be taken
into account simultaneously. When only the lowest
Landau subband is occupied } the extreme-quan-
tum-limit assumption, all the electrons are con-
strained to move in the same circular orbit. This
orbit drifts in the applied electric "eld direction
under scattering conditions that are the same for all
 

* Corresponding author. Fax: #85-2874138.
E-mail address: valder@"sica.ufc.br (V.N. Freire)
subbands are populated, several electron circular
orbits exist, and their radii are directly related to
the quantized electron energy levels. In this case,
these orbits drift in the applied electric "eld direc-
tion under scattering conditions that change with
the order and "lling of the Landau subbands.
Most works on magneto-transport in narrow-
gap semiconductors have assumed the extreme
quantum limit hypothesis. For example, the hot
electron conductivity in n-HgCdTe was shown to
decrease when the applied magnetic "eld becomes
stronger due to the related carrier scattering rates
enhancement in this approximation, [1]. The hot
electron drift velocity in n-Hg Cd Te was

shown to decrease when the magnetic "eld becomes
stronger [2]. However, the e!ect of Landau

0921-4526/99/$ } see front matter  1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 1 - 4 5 2 6 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 5 1 - 4
 E.W.S. Caetano et al. / Physica B 269 (1999) 28}33
sub-bands "lling should change signi"cantly the
transport properties of electrons in semiconductors
subject to high magnetic "elds (B&T), principally
when the carrier e!ective mass is small. Parti-
cularly, this was shown to be the case of the
steady-state properties of hot electrons in InSb, [3]
whose electron e!ective mass is 0.014 m , where

m is the electron mass in the free space. The theor-

etically calculated electron drift velocity in InSb
exhibits negative di!erential mobility for magnetic
"eld intensities up to 25 T when the occupation of
only the lowest Landau subband is assumed. How-
ever, the negative di!erential mobility was pre-
cluded when the "lling of all the possible high
Landau subbands is considered [3]. Since the dissi-
pation of the excess energy and the momentum
scattering rate of hot electrons in InSb subject to
high-magnetic-"eld changes with the occupation of
high Landau subbands, the high-magnetic-"eld
transport in the transient regime should be also
very dependent on the "lling degree of the magnetic
subbands.
Recently, the ultrafast transport transient prop-
erties of electrons in InSb subjected to high parallel
electric and magnetic "eld was studied [4]. By
considering the "lling of high Landau subbands in
the numerical calculations, a high magnetic "eld
can reduce the electron drift velocity and energy in
InSb subjected to high parallel electric and mag-
netic "elds, does not favour the existence of the
electron velocity overshoot and can even eliminate
it [4]. High-magnetic-"eld e!ects on the terahertz
mobility of hot electrons in n-type InSb were
studied by Caetano et al. [5]. They showed that the
magnetic "eld reduces the real and imaginary com-
ponents of the hot-electron mobility in n-type InSb,
and can be able to reduce or even eliminate the
hump in the low-frequency side (around 0.1 THz) of
the imaginary mobility. Unhappily, neither Mendes
[4] nor Caetano [5] have given a clear insight
concerning changes in the time evolution of the
electron transport properties in InSb if the ex-
treme-quantum-limit assumption is considered.
This paper is concerned with the e!ect of high
Landau subbands "lling on the time evolution to-
wards the steady state of the electron drift velocity
and temperature in InSb under parallel high elec-
tric (&kV/cm) and magnetic (&T) "elds. The
29
purpose is to establish a clear picture on the conse-
quences of the extreme quantum limit hypothesis in
the hot-electron magneto-transport evolution to-
wards the steady state in InSb. The description of
the transport equations and the numerical ap-
proach to their solution that are necessary to study
the hot-electron magneto-transport transient in
InSb, as well as the electron scattering processes
considered during the calculations are presented in
Section 2. Section 3 contains the numerical results
and discussion on the evolution of the electron drift
velocity and energy (or mean temperature) towards
the steady state obtained in extreme-quantum-limit
approximation and beyond it. The "nal conclu-
sions close this work in Section 4.
2. Model and numerical approach
The theoretical investigation is performed
through the numerical solution of the following
two coupled di!erential equations for the electron
drift velocity (v) and energy e (or mean temperature
since e"3k/2, where k is the Boltzmann) in the
relaxation time approximation:
dv qE v
" ! , (1)
dt m(e) q (e, B)

de e!e
"qvE! , (2)
dt q (e, B)
C
where e is the thermal energy of the electron at the

lattice temperature, q is the electric charge of the
electron, and m(e) its non-parabolic energy-depen-
dent e!ective mass in InSb, "nally, E and B is the
applied electric and magnetic "eld intensity, respec-
tively.
Instead using the expressions for the momentum
q (e, B) and energy q (e, B) relaxation times as given
 C
by Nag [6], the relaxation times are calculated in
this work using the steady-state relations between
electron energy;electric "eld and electron drift
velocity;electric "eld for a given magnetic "eld
intensity B. A similar approach to solve the coupled
transport equations was used previously to deter-
mine the ultrafast behaviour of hot-carriers in
GaAs [7] and p-GaAs [8]. The results obtained
with this scheme of solution of the Boltzmann-like
30 E.W.S. Caetano et al. / Physica B 269 (1999) 28}33
Eqs. (1) and (2) are always in good agreement with
those calculated with the most frequently used
methods of solution (like the Monte Carlo method,
for example).
The steady-state values of the electron drift
velocity and temperature in InSb subjected to an
applied electric and magnetic "eld (E""B) were cal-
culated theoretically by Weng and Lei [3] consid-
ering the non-parabolicity of the energy bands, and
the electron scattering with ionized impurities,
acoustic and polar optical phonons. These are the
dominant electron scattering mechanisms at low
temperatures [6], and are considered during the
numerical calculations performed in this work
through the relaxation times q (e, B) and q (e, B).
 C
The e!ect of non-parabolicity on the energy loss
rate of hot electrons in narrow gap semiconductors
subjected to a magnetic "eld was found by Santra
and Sarkar [9] to enhance their energy loss rate in
the extreme quantum limit, and has to be taken
into account.
A "rst indication of the importance of the "lling
of high Landau subbands during the transient re-
gime is the interband electron scattering time.
However, it is not available at the moment for InSb.
But the experimental results of Hannak et al. [10]
showed that the interband electron relaxation time
for GaAs : Be is of the order of 4 ps. This suggests
that the interband relaxation time for electrons in
InSb should be much smaller than 4 ps since its
electron e!ective mass is smaller than the electron
e!ective mass in GaAs : Be. Since this time is of the
order of the time necessary to the transport para-
meters of the electrons to arrive at the steady state,
the "lling of high Landau subbands should be con-
sidered in describing the ultrafast magneto-trans-
port transient of hot electrons in InSb.
3. Results and discussion
The transient behaviour of the electron drift ve-
locity and temperature in InSb at 42 K is calculated
for electric "eld intensities of 0.5, 1.5, 2.5 kV/cm,
and magnetic "eld intensities of 2 and 25 T. The
InSb doping density is 10 cm\. Within these
conditions, the extreme-quantum-limit assumption
is not valid anymore even for a magnetic "eld
intensity as high as 25 T [3]. In fact, the occupied
electron subbands number is higher than 21 when
B"2 T and E"2.5 kV/cm, and much larger than
unity even when B"25 T [3].
The e!ect of high Landau subbands "lling on the
ultrafast hot-electron magneto-transport transient
in InSb subjected to high magnetic and electric
"elds is presented in Figs. 1}3. They show that the
electron drift velocity and temperature calculated
using the extreme-quantum-limit assumption is al-
ways higher than that calculated if the "lling of the
all Landau subbands is taken into account. One
can see also that the time necessary for the electron
drift velocity and temperature to arrive at the
steady state is almost independent of the scheme
used to calculate them.
For low electric "elds (see Fig. 1), an overshoot in
the electron drift velocity is precluded for magnetic
"elds up to 25 T if the "lling of all Landau sub-
bands is considered. However, when the extreme-
quantum-limit is taken into account, the overshoot
exists when the magnetic "eld intensity is small
(2 T), but it disappears for higher magnetic "elds
(25 T, for example). This occurs because the cooling
e!ect of the magnetic "eld is very important at low
electric "elds [3]. At the steady state, this implies
a signi"cant reduction in the electron drift velocity
due to enhancement of the electron momentum
scattering mechanisms. During the low-electric
"eld transient regime, to consider the "lling of all
Landau subbands turns the electron momentum
relaxation rate smaller than the electron energy
relaxation rate at high magnetic "elds, which is
enough to preclude the existence of an overshoot
e!ect in the electron drift velocity [11].
In the high-electric "eld case, the overshoot e!ect
in the electron drift velocity can also occur even if
the "lling of all Landau subbands is considered.
This is shown in Figs. 2 and 3, where one can also
observe that, for a given electric and magnetic "eld
intensity, the overshoot obtained within the
 According to Tiwari (see Ref. [11] and references therein),
overshoot e!ects in the drift velocity of carriers in semiconduc-
tors occur when the relaxation rate of momentum is larger than
the relaxation rate of energy (this is valid when intervalley
scattering is not considered).
 E.W.S. Caetano et al. / Physica B 269 (1999) 28}33
Fig. 1. Evolution of the electron drift velocity (top) and temper-
ature (bottom) in n-InSb towards the steady state when the
applied electric "eld is 0.5 kV/cm. They were calculated consid-
ering: the extreme-quantum-limit assumption with B"2 T (dot-
ted dashed) and B"25 T (bi-dotted dashed); the "lling of all
possible high Landau subbands with B"2 T (solid) and 25 T
(dotted).
extreme-quantum-limit assumption is always bi-
gger than that calculated if the "lling of all Landau
subbands is considered. In both cases, the e!ect of
an increase in the magnetic "eld intensity is to
reduce the overshoot e!ect in the electron drift
velocity. This behaviour can be understood by re-
membering that the cooling e!ect of the magnetic
"eld is much less important at high electric "elds.
There is only a small reduction in the electron drift
velocity at the steady state due to the enhancement
of the electron momentum scattering mechanisms.
31
Fig. 2. Evolution of the electron drift velocity (top) and temper-
ature (bottom) in n-InSb towards the steady state when the
applied electric "eld is 1.5 kV/cm. They were calculated consid-
ering: the extreme-quantum-limit assumption with B"2 (dot-
ted dashed) and 25 T (bi-dotted dashed); the "lling of all possible
high Landau subbands with B"2 (solid) and 25 T (dotted).
During the high electric "eld transient regime, to
consider the "lling of all Landau subbands is not
su$cient to make the electron momentum relax-
ation rate much smaller than the electron energy
relaxation rate at high magnetic "elds. Conse-
quently, the magnetic "eld-related cooling e!ect is
not enough anymore to preclude the existence of an
overshoot e!ect in the electron drift velocity [11]
(see footnote 1) but can reduce it considerably.
With respect to the electron temperature, it is
worth to comment that its initial rate of increase
depends on the applied magnetic "eld intensity as
well as how the InSb subbands "lling are described.
32 E.W.S. Caetano et al. / Physica B 269 (1999) 28}33
Fig. 3. Evolution of the electron drift velocity (top) and temper-
ature (bottom) in n-InSb towards the steady state when the
applied electric "eld is 0.5 kV/cm. They were calculated consid-
ering: the extreme-quantum-limit assumption with B"2 (dot-
ted dashed) and 25 T (bi-dotted dashed); the "lling of all possible
high Landau subbands with B"2 (solid) and 25 T (dotted).
It is observed, for example, that when the extreme-
quantum-limit is considered, the electron temper-
ature increases faster than when the "lling of all
Landau subbands is taken into account.
The above results can also be understood
through a relaxation time-based analysis. In fact,
the electron scattering rate increases when all the
Landau subbands are considered because it is re-
lated not only to the electron drift in the direction
of the applied electric "eld, but also to the drift of
the circular orbits. For a given electric "eld E, the
electron scattering rate increases when the mag-
netic "eld intensity is higher (this increase is bigger
when the electric "eld is small), and is then respon-
sible for the reduction observed in the electron drift
velocity and average energy since q (e, BO0)'

q (e, B"0) and q (e, BO0)'q (e, B"0).
 C C
4. Concluding remarks
Most of the previous published works on mag-
netotransport in semiconductors have assumed the
occupation of only the lowest Landau subband
[1,2,12]. The results presented in this work suggest
that this approach is very limited. In particular, it
was shown in this paper that to better describe the
hot-electron magneto-transport transient in InSb
one has to consider the "lling of all possible Land-
au subbands. If measurements of the overshoot
velocity in InSb subjected to both high electric and
magnetic "elds (E""B) are performed, they will show
that the theoretical results based on the extreme-
quantum-limit approximation overevaluates the
overshoot e!ect. However, this type of measure-
ments constitutes a formidable experimental chal-
lenge.
In conclusion, it was shown that the electron
drift velocity and temperature in InSb subjected to
high parallel electric and magnetic "elds calculated
within the extreme-quantum-limit assumption are
considerably overestimated when compared with
those obtained by taking into account the "lling of
all high Landau subbands. When E"2.5 kV/cm
and B"2 T, the drift velocity obtained considering
the extreme-quantum-limit assumption is about
two times bigger than that obtained by taking into
account the "lling of all possible Landau subbands.
In the low electric "eld case, the magnetic "eld
cooling e!ect can preclude the existence of an elec-
tron velocity drift overshoot if the "lling of all
possible high Landau subbands is considered. This
occurs for both B"2 T and B"25 when the ap-
plied electric "eld intensity is 0.5 kV/cm. The results
presented in this work indicate the necessity to
consider the "lling of high Landau subbands in the
description of the high-"eld transport properties of
semiconductors subjected to high parallel electric
and magnetic "elds.
 E.W.S. Caetano et al. / Physica B 269 (1999) 28}33
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the inter-
esting suggestions of the two anonymous referees of
this work. V.N. Freire would like to acknowledge
the partial "nancial support received from the
Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq), the
Ministry of Planning (FINEP), and the Science
Funding Agency of the CearaH State in Brazil (FUN-
CAP) for the realization of this work. E.A. Mendes
and E.W.S. Caetano would like to acknowledge the
scholarships they received from CNPq during the
period this research was performed.
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