Competing phases in AlAs quantum wells

As a material with multi-pocket fermiology GaAs/AlAs heterostructures may exhibit gate-tunable unconventional superconductivity arising from inter-pocket scattering. Starting from an ab initio band structure of an AlAs quantum well we study this possibility within the random phase approximation and investigate the interplay of the superconducting instability with the experimentally observed spin and valley polarized phases [1]. We compare our results to theoretical approaches on the two component 2D electron gas [2].

[1] O. Gunawan et al.: Spin-valley phase diagram of the two-dimensional metal-insulator transition, Nature Physics 3 (2007)

[2] A. Chubukov and S. Kivelson: Superconductivity in engineered two-dimensional electron gases, Phys. Rev. B 96, 174514 (2017)