Quantal Heating of Conducting Electrons with Discrete Spectrum.

Usually heating of conducting electrons by dc electric field results in an increase of electron temperature. In this paper we show that the dc heating of 2D electrons, placed in quantized magnetic fields, results in a peculiar electron distribution, which has the same broadening or an effective 'temperature' as the unbiased electron system. The quantal heating, however, violates strongly the Ohm's Law. In the conducting system with discrete electron spectrum the quantal heating results in spectacular decrease of electron resistance and transition of the electrons into a state with zero differential resistance (ZDR). Finally the heating leads to apparent dc driven metal-insulator transition, which correlates with the transition into the ZDR state. The correlation is very unexpected and is not understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]