Groupe de Physique Statistique

The field and temperature dependence of the de Haas-van Alphen oscillation spectrum is studied for an ideal two-dimensional compensated metal. It is shown that the chemical potential oscillations, which are involved in the frequency combinations observed in the case of uncompensated orbits, are strongly damped and can even be suppressed when the effective masses of the electron- and hole-type orbits are the same. When a magnetic breakdown between bands occurs, this damping is even more pronounced and the Lifshits-Kosevich formalism accounts for the data within a wide field range.