Demonstration of high sensitivity of microwave-induced resistance oscillations to circular polarization

Abstract: We demonstrate that long-debated immunity of microwave-induced resistance oscillations (MIRO) to the sense of circular polarization is not a generic property of this phenomenon in solid-state two-dimensional electron systems. Using a large-area GaAs-based heterostructure we detect up to 30 times larger MIRO signal for the cyclotron resonance (CR) active helicity, fully consistent with the concurrently measured transmission and the deduced CR shape of the Drude absorption. We further elaborate conditions to avoid extrinsic factors capable of producing an apparent immunity of the photoresponse.