Vol 107, No 12 (2018)

We have experimentally studied the fractional quantum Hall effect in SiGe/Si/SiGe quantum wells in relatively weak magnetic fields, where the Coulomb interaction between electrons exceeds the cyclotron splitting by a factor of a few XX. Minima of the longitudinal resistance have been observed corresponding to the quantum Hall effect of composite fermions with quantum numbers p = 1, 2, 3, and 4. Minima with p = 3 disappear in magnetic fields below 7 T, which may be a consequence of the intersection or even merging of the quantum levels of the composite fermions with different orientations of the pseudo-spin, i.e., those belonging to different valleys. We have also observed minima of the longitudinal resistance at filling factors ν = 4/5 and 4/11, which may be due to the formation of the second generation of the composite fermions.

The atomic and electronic structure of intrinsic point defects in orthorhombic tantalum oxide has been studied by numerical simulation within the density functional theory. It has been shown that all defects responsible for metal enrichment of Ta₂O₅ serve as electron and hole traps. Under conditions of strong oxygen depletion and at a metal–insulator interface, which are characteristic of resistive memory elements, interstitial tantalum atoms compete with an oxygen vacancy in the formation of a conducting filament. Interstitial oxygen atoms are not involved in charge transport. Tantalum substituting oxygen can be considered as a combination of the oxygen vacancy and interstitial tantalum. The analysis of the calculated thermal and optical energies of trap ionization shows that the oxygen vacancy is a key defect for charge transport in Ta₂O₅.

The phenomenon of microwave-induced magnetoresistance oscillations is studied in a series of ZnO/MgZnO heterojunctions characterized by different two-dimensional electron densities n. It is found that the effective electron mass m* determined from the period of microwave-induced magnetoresistance oscillations depends essentially on this parameter. For high densities, the value of m* tends to the effective electron mass in bulk ZnO, while for low densities, m* increases pronouncedly and becomes considerably larger than the electron cyclotron mass. The experimental results give clear evidence of a significant impact of the electron–electron interaction on microwave-induced magnetoresistance oscillations.

Positive terahertz photoconductivity has been observed in underdoped high-temperature superconductors YBa₂Cu₃O_7–δ at temperatures somewhat higher than the midpoint of the superconducting transition. The amplitude of the effect is almost independent of the temperature and the power of the incident radiation if the latter exceeds a certain threshold value. The mechanisms responsible for the appearance of the effect are discussed.

The theory of the photon drag of dipolar excitons in double-quantum-well nanostructures is presented. It is shown that the exciton-drag flux density features a resonant behavior if the photon frequency is close to some transition frequency in the discrete exciton spectrum. When the structure is irradiated with polarized light, the resonant enhancement of the drag current occurs when the photon energy coincides with the energy of an excited level of the exciton internal motion and the components of the angular momentum of internal motion in the initial and final states differ by one. The proposed effect can be used to control exciton transport in nanostructures based on a two-dimensional exciton gas.

The effect of pump depletion on the spectrum of twin beams, which appear in the process of collinear parametric down-conversion in a nonlinear crystal with an aperiodic domain structure and have a high degree of simultaneity, has been described. A system of equations describing the interaction of pump with all modes of scattered light simultaneously has been derived. It has been shown that pump depletion results in a noticeable broadening of the spectrum of twin beams for a quadratic-hyperbolic law of variation of the reciprocal lattice vector of the domain structure. The effect of narrowing of the coherent peak in the sum-frequency generation signal from twin beams has been demonstrated. This effect increases as the pump is depleted.

A model implying that particles of a medium are subjected to external forces with a flicker noise spectrum has been proposed to describe fluctuations in locally nonequilibrium physical media. The Langevin equation with additional integral terms describing the action of the locally nonequilibrium medium has been derived. The spectral density of fluctuations of an electric current flowing in the locally nonequilibrium medium has been calculated. It has been found that this density in the low-frequency spectral range is flicker noise.