Terahertz magneto-optical spectroscopy of a two-dimensional hole gas

Two-dimensional hole gases (2DHGs) have attracted recent attention for their unique quantum physics and potential applications in areas including spintronics and quantum computing. However, their properties remain relatively unexplored, motivating the use of different techniques to study them. We used terahertz magneto-optical spectroscopy to investigate the cyclotron resonance frequency in a high mobility 2DHG, revealing a nonlinear dependence on the applied magnetic field. This is shown to be due to the complex non-parabolic valence band structure of the 2DHG, as verified by multiband Landau level calculations. We also find that impurity scattering dominates cyclotron resonance decay in the 2DHG, in contrast with the dominance of superradiant damping in two-dimensional electron gases. Our results shed light on the properties of 2DHGs, motivating further studies of these unique 2D nanosystems. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.