Two-dimensional electrons in AlAs quantum wells occupy multiple conduction-band minima at the X- points of the Brillouin zone. These valleys have large effective mass and g-factor compared to the stan-dard GaAs electrons, and are also highly anisotropic. With proper choice of well width and by applying symmetry-breaking strain in the plane, one can control the occupation of different valleys thus rendering a system with tuneable effective mass, g-factor, Fermi contour anisotropy, and valley degeneracy. Here we review some of the rich physics that this system has allowed us to explore.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0606158,
title = {Two-dimensional electrons occupying multiple valleys in AlAs},
author = {M. Shayegan and E. P. De Poortere and O. Gunawan and Y. P. Shkolnikov and E. Tutuc and K. Vakili},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0606158},
year = {2015}
}