The effect of oscillating Fermi energy on the line shape of the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillation in a two dimensional electron gas

The line shape of the Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillation has been analyzed in detail for a GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron gas. The line shape, or equivalently the behavior of the Fourier components, of the experimentally observed SdH oscillation is well reproduced by the sinusoidal density of states at the Fermi energy that oscillates with a magnetic field in a saw-tooth shape to keep the electron density constant. This suggests that the broadening of each Landau level by disorder is better described by a Gaussian than by a Lorentzian.