The key role of smooth impurity potential in formation of hole spectrum for p-Ge/Ge_{1-x}Si_x heterostructures in the quantum Hall regime

Abstract

We have measured the temperature (0.1 <= T <= 15 K) and magnetic field (0 <= B <= 12 T) dependences of longitudinal and Hall resistivities for the p-Ge_0.93Si_0.07/Ge multilayers with different Ge layer widths 10 <= d_w <= 38 nm and hole densities p_s = (1-5)10^11 cm^-2. Two models for the long-range random impurity potential (the model with randomly distributed charged centers located outside the conducting layer and the model of the system with a spacer) are used for evaluation of the impurity potential fluctuation characteristics: the random potential amplitude, nonlinear screening length in vicinity of integer filling factors nu = 1 and nu = 2 and the background density of state (DOS). The described models are suitable for explanation of the unusually high value of DOS at nu = 1 and nu = 2, in contrast to the short-range impurity potential models. For half-integer filling factors the linear temperature dependence of the effective QHE plateau-to-plateau transition width nu_0(T) is observed in contrast to scaling behavior for systems with short-range disorder. The finite T -> 0 width of QHE transitions may be due to an effective low temperature screening of smooth random potential owing to Coulomb repulsion of electrons.