Cyclotron Resonance in semiconductors

Semiconductors Cyclotron Resonance

on1, a) and Diego Garca1, b)
Juan Sebastian Calder
Universidad de los Andes
(Dated: 22 May 2017)
In the present document we explain the Cyclotron Resonance in semiconductors. First we explain the Cy-
clotron resonance and the effective mass for the Cyclotron resonance. Then we consider the semiconductors
case and we consider experiments and applications of this physical phenonenum.
Keywords: Cyclotron Resonance, Effectiva mass, Semiconductor

The cyclotron resonance is the experimental step
to determine the effective mass of semiconduc-
tors. This is done in order to fine the abssortion
peaks of the semiconductor surface when the cy-
clotron resonance occurs.
one of these loops depends inversely with magnetic field
as in (1), so it is possible to define a cyclotron effective
mass from the measured period. The semiclassical mo-

I. CYCLOTRON RESONANCE

Cyclotron resonance describes the interaction of exter-

nal fields (that create external forces) with charged par-
ticles in a magnetic field. Since the particles are already
under the effect of a magnetic field, they will be follow-
ing circular trajectories. The Cyclotron name is due to
the cyclic particle accelerator that has an oscillating elec-
tric field tuned to this resonance to add kinetic energy
to charged particles. The importance of this technique FIG. 1. Closed area in the Reciprocal space.
in the solid state physics is that we can use the attenu-
ation of microwave when it penetrates a metal surface. tion of the particle can be described by a closed loop in
We know that the shape of the Fermi surface comes from the Reciprocal space. Throughout this loop, the particle
the periodicity and symmetry of the crystalline lattice maintains a constant energy E, as well as a constant mo-
and from the occupation of electronic energy bands.The mentum along the H direction. If we define A to be the
thing is that with the Cyclotron Resonance we are not reciprocal area enclosed by this loop (this area depends
studyng the Fermy geometry but the Cyclotron efective on the energy E, the direction of the magnetic field, and
mass. We can do this by observing at which frequency the on-axis wavevector kH ), then it can be shown that the
the electric field has resonance with the electronic motion cyclotron effective mass depends on the band structure
in a magnetic field (uniform). via the derivative of this area in energy:

k) = ~2  k

A. Cyclotron efective mass m (E, H, H A E, H, H (2)
2 E
Classically, when we have a charged particle in a mag- In order to prove that consider an orbit of energy E in
netic field H it will follow a helix along the magnetic field a particular plane perpendicular to the field. The time
direction. The period T of the motion is: taken to traverse that portion of the orbit between k1
2m and k2 is:
T = (1)
eH
But in solid state we are dealing normally with parti- Z t2 Z k2
dk
cles in asymmetrical band structures, hence we will not T = t2 t1 = dt = (3)
have trajectories like a helix as in the classical way, how- t1 k1 |k|
ever we have that the transverse direction to the mag-
netic field stills in a closed loop. The time to complete Since we have the semiclassical equations

1 E
r = v(k) = (4)
a) Also at Universidad de los Andes ~ k
b) Electronic mail: Second.Author@institution.edu. k = e/c r(k) H (5)
Cyclotron Resonance in semiconductors 2

we have that: of the same phase each time it crosses the skin depth
k2
0 , it can absorb energy from it. This will be the case
~2 c
Z
dk when the applied field has an integral number of periods
T =   (6)
eH k1 E T = nTe where Te is the electric field period and T is the
k cyclotron motion period. Since f = 1/T we know that
  = nc . Usually one fix a frequency and one varies
E H (its magnitude) and writting the resonance condition
where is the component of E/k perpendicular
k
we have:
 
E
to H. We have E = k for small E, with k 1 2e n
k = 2 (10)
a vector perpendicular to the orbit at point k pointing to H ~ c A/E
E + E. Then we have that
Using this equation we can see that plotting 1/H vs.
~2 c
Z k2 absortion we have resonant peaks due to the cyclotron
T = kdk (7) period. Due to the n factor they will be uniformly spaced.
eHE k1

where the integral corresponds to the area of the plane

between the two orbits from k1 and k2 . We proceed to
take the limit when E 0 we have:
~2 c A
T = (8)
eH E
When we consider a closed trajectory, as the cyclotron
case, we have k1 = k2 and T will correspond to the orbit
period, then we have that:

~2 c A(E, kH )
T (E, kH ) = (9) FIG. 3. Cyclotron resonance peaks in Aluminium for certain
eH E
field orientation
In order to relate this equation with the classical one (1)
we define the effective mass of cyclotron resonance as (2). Later in this document, those peaks will be studied
For the cyclotron resonance we have the condition = c and explained for certain cases in the semiconductors.

B. Azbel-Kaner Geometry
Typically the field cannot penetrate far into the metal,
then the electrons absorb energy when they are in a skin
depth 0 of the surface. At microwave frequency and c
large we are in the anomalous regime where the skin
depth is small compared to the mean free path. Since the
dimensions of the electrons real space orbit at the fermi
surface are comparable to the mean free path, we have
that the skin depth is small compared with the orbits
size.
C. Semiconductor Cyclotron Resonance
The electronic properties of semiconductor are com-
pletely determined by the number of electrons excited
into the conduction band and holes left behind in the
valence band. We know that electrons will be found in
the levels near to the conduction band minimum region,
while the holes will be founded in the neighborhood of
the valence band maximum region. Knowing this we can
approximate the energy by quadratic forms by:

~2 X 1
E(k)electrons = Ec + ki (Mij kj ) (11)
2 ij
~2 X 1
E(k)holes = Ev ki (Mij kj ) (12)
2 ij

where Ec is the energy at the bottom of the conduction

FIG. 2. Azbel-Kaner Parallel-field geometry.
When we already know that, we can do what Azbel
and Kaner did: They placed a magnetic field parallel to
the surface. If the electron experiments the electric field
band. Ev is the maximum value at the valence band,
and we consider the origin of the reciprocal space in the
band maximum. Here we have M to be the mass tensor
such that M 1 is real and symmetric so we can find an
orthogonal basis that akes it diagonal. The the energy
Cyclotron Resonance in semiconductors 3

can be written as:

k12 k2 k2
 
E(k)electrons = Ec + ~2 + 2 + 3 (13)
2m1 2m2 2m3
 2 2
k2

k1 k
E(k)holes = Ev ~2 + 2 + 3 (14)
2m1 2m2 2m3

Then if we want to study the constant energy surfaces

we have ellipsoidal figures and are in terms of the three FIG. 4. Cyclotron resonance peaks in some semiconductors:
axes and their three efective masses. Consider now an Silicon and Germanium
electron close to the bottom of the conduction band (or
top of the valence band) in order to apply our quadratic Evidently the cyclotron frequency depends, given the
expansion. Having a magnetic field H and the equations ellipsoid, on the orientation of the magnetic field with
of motion (4) we know that v(k) must obbey the set of respect to that ellipsoid. The interesting thing is that
equations: it does not depend on the initial wave vector or the
energy of the electron. Then for a given orientation
dv e of the crystal with respect to the field, all electrons in
M = vH (15) a given ellipsoidal region of conduction (or for holes
dt c
in ellypsoidal region of valence) precess at a frequency
This system under a constant uniform field along the entirely determinated by the M tensor. With this
zaxis has an oscillatory solution (by direct subsitution dependence, there will be a small number of distinct
in (15)): cyclotron frequencies. By noting how the shift when
the field orientation is varied we can extract useful
v = Re{v0 eit } (16) information.

p II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

with = eH/m c and m = det(M )/Mzz . The last
expression can be expressed in terms of the eigenvalues
A. Germanium
and principal axis like:
s B. Silicon
m1 m2 m3
m = 2 2 2 (17)
H1 m1 + H2 m2 + H3 m3 III. APPLICATIONS

where the H i are the the components along the principal IV. CONCLUSIONS
axis of a unit vector parallel to H.