Pressure dependence of the cyclotron mass in n-GaAs-GaAlAs heterojunctions by FIR emission and transport experiments

The pressure dependence of the cyclotron mass of quasi-two-dimensional electrons in GaAs-GaAlAs heterojunctions is studied. The authors use cyclotron emission experiments coupled with transport experiments. An increase of 0.5% per kbar of the cyclotron mass is found in the investigated pressure range 0-8 kbar. Their analysis shows that two effects, which act in opposite directions, must be considered: the first is the increase of the mass due to the increase of the energy gap and the second is the reduction of the non-parabolicity corrections due to the decrease of the two-dimensional electron gas density when pressure is applied. This explains that the observed increase of the cyclotron mass is smaller than the one predicted by the kp perturbation method.