Coherent Hall effect in a semiconductor superlattice

Phys Rev Lett. 2002 Feb 25;88(8):086801. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.086801. Epub 2002 Feb 11.

Abstract

The coherent Hall effect denotes the transient Hall response of impulsively excited coherent charge-carrier wave packets in a solid. We report the first experimental study of this phenomenon (i) using a semiconductor superlattice in crossed electric and magnetic fields as a model for three-dimensional materials and (ii) employing a contactless optoelectronic technique to probe the transient currents. Two field regimes with distinctly different oscillatory wave packet dynamics are found, separated from each other by a transition region where all oscillations are suppressed.