2001/03/31 by Kirill N. Alekseev, Ethan H. Cannon, Feodor V. Kusmartsev +1
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.stat-mech #nlin.CD
paper · pdf · doi:10.1209/epl/i2001-00596-9
published as Europhysics Letters 56 (2001) 842; Erratum: 68 (2004) 753 · 6 pages, 3 figures, RevTEX, EPSF. Revised version v3: corrected typos
arxiv created 2004/12/23 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
We consider the spontaneous creation of a dc voltage across a strongly coupled semiconductor superlattice subjected to THz radiation. We show that the dc voltage may be approximately proportional either to an integer or to a half- integer multiple of the frequency of the applied ac field, depending on the ratio of the characteristic scattering rates of conducting electrons. For the case of an ac field frequency less than the characteristic scattering rates, we demonstrate the generation of an unquantized dc voltage.