Magnetic field dependence of valley splitting in realistic Si/SiGe quantum wells

The authors investigate the magnetic field dependence of the energy splitting between low-lying valley states for electrons in a Si/SiGe quantum well tilted with respect to the crystallographic axis. The presence of atomic steps at the quantum well interface may explain the unexpected, strong suppression of the valley splitting observed in recent experiments. The authors find that the suppression is caused by an interference effect associated with multiple steps, and that the magnetic field dependence arises from the lateral confinement of the electronic wave function. Using numerical simulations, the authors clarify the role of step disorder, obtaining quantitative agreement with the experiments. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.