Spin susceptibility and effective mass of two-dimensional electrons in Mgx Zn1-x O/ZnO heterostructures

We report measurements of the spin susceptibility and the electron effective mass for two-dimensional electrons confined at the interfaces of Mgx Zn1-x O/ZnO single heterostructures (x=0.05, 0.08, and 0.11), grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on (0001) ZnO substrates. By tuning the built-in polarization through control of the barrier composition, the electron density was systematically varied in the range of 5.6× 1011 -1.6× 1012 cm-2, corresponding to a range of 3.1≤ rs ≤5.2, where rs is the average electron spacing measured in units of the effective Bohr radius. We used the coincidence technique, where crossings of the spin-split Landau levels occur at critical tilt angles of magnetic field, to evaluate the spin susceptibility. In addition, we determined the effective mass from the temperature dependence of the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations measured at the coincidence conditions. The susceptibility and the effective mass both gradually increase with decreasing electron density, reflecting the role of electron-electron interaction.