Nonequilibrium phenomena in bilayer electron systems

Abstract

In the present Letter, we have used magnetocapacitance and magnetoresistance measurements to investigate nonequilibrium phenomena in a bilayer electron system based on GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures. The magnetic field ramping drives the bilayer electron system out of equilibrium, leading to magnetoresistance hysteresis and spikes. Unlike magnetoresistance, magnetocapacitance results intriguingly show hysteresis even when both layers are in the quantum Hall state. The hysteresis is accompanied by interlayer charge transfer, but the disequilibrium is not limited to interlayer imbalance. Results show that the edge-bulk imbalance can be the initial ground for the appearance of hysteresis. In addition, the nonequilibrium states are observed in which the total, rather than individual, layer densities determine the magnetic field and gate voltage dependencies.