Weak anisotropy and disorder dependence of the in-plane magnetoresistance in high mobility (100) Si-inversion layers

V. M. Pudalov, G. Brunthaler, A. Prinz, G. Bauer

Published 2000-04-12, updated 2001-07-03Version 3

We report studies of the magnetoresistance (MR) in a two-dimensional electron system in (100) Si-inversion layers, for perpendicular and parallel orientations of the current with respect to the magnetic field in the 2D-plane. The magnetoresistance is almost isotropic; this result does not support the suggestion of the orbital origin of the MR in Si-inversion layer. In the hopping regime, however, the MR contains a weak anisotropic component that is non-monotonic in magnetic field. We found that the field, at which the MR saturates, for different samples varies by a factor of two, being lower or higher than the field of complete spin polarization of free carriers. Therefore, the saturation of the MR can not be identified with the spin polarization of free carriers.