Up to almost the last two decades all the experimental results concerning the quantum Hall effect (QHE), i.e., the observation of plateaux at integer (IQHE) or fractional (FQHE) values of the constant h/e2, were related to quantum-wells in semiconductor heterostructures (QWs). However, more recently, a renewed interest in revisiting these phenomena has arisen thanks to the observation of entirely similar effects in graphene and topological insulators. In this paper we show an approach encompassing all these QHEs using the same theoretical frame, entailing both Hall effect plateaux and Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations. Moreover, the model also enables the analysis of both phenomena as a function not only of the magnetic field but the gate voltage as well. More specifically, in light of the approach, the FQHE in any two-dimensional electron system (2DES) appears to be an effect of the breaking of the degeneration of every Landau level, n, as a result of the electrostatic interaction involved, and being characterized by the set of three integer numbers (n, p, q), where p and q have clear physical meanings too.
We propose a construction of a global phase diagram for the quantum Hall effect. This global phase diagram is based on our previous constructions of visibility diagrams in the context of the Quantum Hall Effect. The topology of the phase diagram we obtain is in good agreement with experimental observations (when the spin effect can be neglected). This phase diagram does not show floating.
We study the coupled dynamics of spin and charge currents in a two-dimensional electron gas in the transport diffusive regime. For systems with inversion symmetry there are established relations between the spin Hall effect, the anomalous Hall effect and the inverse spin Hall effect. However, in two-dimensional electron gases of semiconductors like GaAs, inversion symmetry is broken so that the standard arguments do not apply. We demonstrate that in the presence of a Rashba type of spin-orbit coupling (broken structural inversion symmetry) the anomalous Hall effect, the spin Hall and inverse s…
We study a nonadiabatic effect on the conductances in the quantum Hall effect of two-dimensional electrons with a periodic potential. We found that the Hall and longitudinal conductances oscillate in time with a very large frequencies due to quantum fluctuation.
General thermodynamical arguments are used to relate the Hall current to the part of the magnetic moment originated in "macroscopic current loops". The Hall resistance is found to depend only on the electron properties in the vicinity of the Fermi energy, which is the essential advantage of the presented treatment. The obtained relation is analyzed by using Landauer-Buttiker-like view to the electron transport. As one of the possible application the Hall resistance of the periodically modulated two-dimensional electron system in strong magnetic fields is briefly discussed.
Hall viscosity is a nondissipative response function describing momentum transport in two-dimensional (2D) systems with broken time-reversal symmetry. In the classical regime, Hall viscosity contributes to the viscous flow of 2D electrons in the presence of a magnetic field. We observe a pronounced, negative Hall resistivity at low magnetic field in a mesoscopic size, two-dimensional electron system, which is attributed to Hall viscosity in the inhomogeneous charge flow. Experimental results supported by a theoretical analysis confirm that the conditions for observation of Hall viscosity are c…
We found the universal relationship between frequency-dependent spin-Hall conductivity and magnetic susceptibility in clean 2D electron systems with Rashba coupling: $σ_{sH}(Ω)= \frac{e}{(gμ_B)^2m_b}χ_\parallel(Ω)$ in the presence of an arbitrary two-particle spin-conserving interaction. We show that the Coulomb interaction renormalizes the spin-Hall constant. The magnitude of the relative correction to $σ_{sH}$ is proportional to the Coulomb interaction parameter $e^2/εv_F\hbar$ and does not depend on the strength of the Rashba coupling $α$.
We consider the effect of microwave radiation on the Hall resistivity in two-dimension electron systems. It is shown that the photon-assisted impurity scattering of electrons can result in oscillatory dependences of both dissipative and Hall components of the conductivity and resistivity tensors on the ratio of radiation frequency to cyclotron frequency. The Hall resistivity can include a component induced by microwave radiation which is an even function of the magnetic field. The phase of the dissipative resistivity oscillations and the polarization dependence of their amplitude are compared …
In a fluid subject to a magnetic field the viscous stress tensor has a dissipationless antisymmetric component controlled by the so-called Hall viscosity. We here propose an all-electrical scheme that allows a determination of the Hall viscosity of a two-dimensional electron liquid in a solid-state device.
The spin-Hall conductivity of a disordered 2D electron gas has been calculated for an arbitrary spin-orbit interaction. We have found that in the diffusive regime of electron transport, in accordance with previous calculations, the dc spin-Hall conductivity of a homogeneous system turns to zero due to impurity scattering when the spin-orbit coupling is represented only by the Rashba interaction. However, when the Dresselhaus interaction is taken into account, the spin-Hall current is not zero. We also considered the spin-Hall currents induced by an inhomogeneous electric field. It is shown tha…
A theory of the weak field Hall effect of Bloch electrons based on the analysis of the forces acting on electrons is presented. It is argued that the electric current is composed of two contributions, that driven by the electric field along current flow and the non-dissipative contribution originated in demagnetization currents. The Hall resistance as a function of the electron concentration for the tight-binding model of a crystal with square lattice and body-centered cubic lattice is described in detail. For comparison the effect of strong magnetic fields is also discussed.
In a two dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, the external electric field may cause a spin Hall current in the direction perpendicular to the electric field. This effect was called the intrinsic spin Hall effect. In this paper, we investigate the influences of spin accumulation on this intrinsic spin Hall effect. We show that due to the existence of boundaries in a real sample, the spin Hall current generated by the intrinsic spin Hall effect will cause spin accumulation near the edges of the sample, and in the presence of spin accumulation, the spin Hall conductivity will…
The renormalization theory of the quantum Hall effect relies primarily on the non-perturbative concept of theta renormalization by instantons. Within the generalized non-linear sigma model approach initiated by Finkelstein we obtain the physical observables of the interacting electron gas, formulate the general (topological) principles by which the Hall conductance is robustly quantized and derive - for the first time - explicit expressions for the non-perturbative (instanton) contributions to the renormalization group beta- and gamma- functions. Our results are in complete agreement with the …
In this article we review the quantum Hall physics of graphene based two-dimensional electron systems, with a special focus on recent experimental and theoretical developments. We explain why graphene and bilayer graphene can be viewed respectively as J=1 and J=2 chiral two-dimensional electron gases (C2DEGs), and why this property frames their quantum Hall physics. The current status of experimental and theoretical work on the role of electron-electron interactions is reviewed at length with an emphasis on unresolved issues in the field, including assessing the role of disorder in current exp…
Using low-temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy applied to the Cs-induced two-dimensional electron system (2DES) on p-type InSb(110), we probe electron-electron interaction effects in the quantum Hall regime. The 2DES is decoupled from p-doped bulk states and exhibits spreading resistance within the insulating quantum Hall phases. In quantitative agreement with calculations we find an exchange enhancement of the spin splitting. Moreover, we observe that both the spatially averaged as well as the local density of states feature a characteristic Coulomb gap at the Fermi level. These result…
We consider the quantum Hall effect of two-dimensional electrons with a periodic potential and study the time dependence of the Hall and longitudinal currents when the electric field is applied abruptly. We find that the currents oscillate in time with very large frequencies because of quantum fluctuation and the oscillations eventually vanish, for their amplitudes decay as 1/t.
Submicron Hall magnetometry has been demonstrated as an efficient technique to probe extremely weak magnetic fields. In this letter, we analyze the possibility of employing it to detect single electron spin. Signal strength and readout time are estimated and discussed with respect to a number of practical issues.
The ground states of electrons in two vertically coupled quantum dots in the presence of an external magnetic field have been studied within the density functional theory. A phase diagram of the transition to the quantum Hall state in double quantum dots has been plotted for the Landau level filling factor $ν= 1$. It has been shown that the quantum Hall state can be stable for a zero tunnel splitting. The influence of the impurity potential on the stability condition for the quantum Hall state has been analyzed.
A theory of the anomalous and spin Hall effects, based on the space distribution of the current densities, is presented. Spin-orbit coupling gives rise to a space separation of the mass centers, as well as a current density separation of the quasiparticle states having opposite group velocities. It is shown that this microscopic property is essential for existence of both Hall effects.
In a recent preprint cond-mat/9906450 (published in PRL 84, 3141 (2000)) Bodo Huckestein showed that at real experimental conditions it is not possible to observe the quantum Hall effect (QHE) at $ω_{c}τ<1$ predicted by Khmelnitskii ($ω_{c}=eB/m$ is the cyclotron frequency and $τ$ is the scattering time). We would like to point out here that in fact the situation is not so hopeless due to the influence of the electron-electron interaction.
We have studied transport properties in a two-dimensional electron gas with equal Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions under a perpendicular magnetic field. By employing the exact solution for this system, we found resonant charge and spin Hall conductances at a certain magnetic field, where all the nearest-neighboring Landau levels cross. Near this value of magnetic field, there exists a resonant spin polarization, which can also induce resonant charge and spin Hall effects.
We study the energy spectrum and the quantized Hall conductance of electrons in a two-dimensional periodic potential with perpendicular magnetic field WITHOUT neglecting the coupling of the Landau bands. Remarkably, even for weak Landau band coupling significant changes in the Hall conductance compared to the one-band approximation of Hofstadter's butterfly are found. The principal deviations are the rearrangement of subbands and unexpected subband contributions to the Hall conductance.
We study spin-resolved probability distributions for electrons in a multichannel waveguide in the presence of a spin-orbit interaction. For a spin-polarized electron injection, a zitterbewegung pattern is predicted in the probability distribution of electrons in the waveguide. For a spin-unpolarized injection, the spin-resolved electron probability in the waveguide shows spin accumulations. In addition to the spin Hall phenomenon, namely accumulations of opposite spins at the lateral edges of the waveguide, we predict the existence of a regular stripe pattern of spin accumulations in the inter…
We investigate the spin-Hall effect of both electrons and holes in semiconductors using the Kubo formula in the correct zero-frequency limit taking into account the finite momentum relaxation time of carriers in real semiconductors. This approach allows to analyze the range of validity of recent theoretical findings. In particular, the spin-Hall conductivity vanishes for vanishing spin-orbit coupling if the correct zero-frequency limit is performed.
It is shown that spin Hall effect creates uniform spin polarization of electrons in semiconductor with a linear in the momentum spin splitting of conduction band. In turn, the profile of the non-uniform spin polarization accumulated at the edge of the sample oscillates in space even in the absence of an external magnetic field.
We demonstrate a new method for locally probing the edge states in the quantum Hall regime utilizing a side coupled quantum dot positioned at an edge of a Hall bar. By measuring the tunneling of electrons from the edge states into the dot, we acquire information on the local electrochemical potential and electron temperature of the edge states. Furthermore, this method allows us to observe the spatial modulation of the electrostatic potential at the edge state due to many-body screening effect.
We propose a mechanism of spin Hall effect in two-dimensional electron gas with spatially random Rashba spin-orbit interaction. The calculations based on the Kubo formalism and kinetic equation show that in contrast to the constant spin-orbit coupling, spin Hall conductivity in the random spin-orbit field is not totally suppressed by the potential impurity scattering. Even if the regular contribution is removed by the vertex corrections, the terms we consider, remain. Therefore, the intrinsic spin-Hall effect exists being, however, non-universal.
We derive the effective field theory from the microscopic Hamiltonian of interacting two-dimensional (pseudo) Dirac electrons by performing a statistic gauge transformation. The quantized Hall conductance are expected to be $σ_{xy}=\frac{e^2}{h}(2k-1)$ with $k$ is arbitrary integer. There are also topological excitations which have fractional charge and obey fractional statistics.
We consider the influence of an external periodic potential on the fractional quantum Hall effect of two-dimensional interacting electron systems. For many electrons on a torus, we find that the splitting of incompressible ground state degeneracies by a weak external potential diminishes as $\exp ( - L/ ξ)$ at large system size $L$. We present numerical results consistent with a scenario in which $ξ$ diverges at continuous phase transitions from fractional to integer quantum Hall states which occur with increasing external potential strength.
It is shown that the observed Quantum Hall Effect in epitaxial layers of heavily doped n-type GaAs with thickness (50-140 nm) larger the mean free path of the conduction electrons (15-30 nm) and, therefore, with a three-dimensional single-particle spectrum is induced by the electron-electron interaction. The Hall resistance R_xy of the thinnest sample reveals a wide plateau at small activation energy E_a=0.4 K found in the temperature dependence of the transverse resistance R_xx. The different minima in the transverse conductance G_xx of the different samples show a universal temperature depen…
Using the four-terminal Landauer-Büttiker formula and Green's function approach, we calculate numerically the spin-Hall conductance in a two-dimensional junction system with the Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling and disorder. We find that the spin-Hall conductance can be much greater or smaller than the universal value $e/8π$, depending on the magnitude of the SO coupling, the electron Fermi energy and the disorder strength. The spin-Hall conductance does not vanish with increasing sample size for a wide range of disorder strength. Our numerical calculation reveals that a nonzero SO coupling can…
The interplay between the confinement potential and electron-electron interactions causes reconstructions of Quantum Hall edges. We study the consequences of this edge reconstruction for the relaxation of hot electrons injected into integer quantum Hall edge states. In translationally invariant edges, the relaxation of hot electrons is governed by three-body collisions which are sensitive to the electron dispersion and thus to reconstruction effects. We show that the relaxation rates are significantly altered in different reconstruction scenarios.
We calculate the spin-Hall conductivity for a two-dimensional electron gas within the self-consistent Born approximation, varying the strength and type of disorder. In the weak disorder limit we find both analytically and numerically a vanishing spin-Hall conductivity even when we allow a momentum dependent scattering. Separating the reactive from the disspative current response, we find the universal value $σ^R_{sH} = e/8 π$ for the reactive response, which cancels however with the dissipative part $σ^D_{sH} = -e/8 π$.
Magnetic transitions in AlAs two-dimensional electrons give rise to sharp resistance spikes within the quantum Hall effect. Such spikes are likely caused by carrier scattering at magnetic domain walls below the Curie temperature. We report a critical behavior in the temperature dependence of the spike width and amplitude, from which we deduce the Curie temperature of the quantum Hall ferromagnet. Our data also reveal that the Curie temperature increases monotonically with carrier density.
We discuss the development of a sensitive electrometer that utilizes a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in the quantum Hall regime. As a demonstration, we measure the evolution of the Landau levels in a second, nearby 2DEG as the applied perpendicular magnetic field is changed, and extract an effective mass for electrons in GaAs that agrees within experimental error with previous measurements.
We show that an electric field parallel to the wavefronts of an electron-hole grating in a GaAs quantum well generates, via the electronic spin Hall effect, a spin grating of the same wave vector and with an amplitude that can exceed 1% of the amplitude of the initial density grating. We refer to this phenomenon as "collective spin Hall effect". A detailed study of the coupled-spin charge dynamics for quantum wells grown in different directions reveals rich features in the time evolution of the induced spin density, including the possibility of generating a helical spin grating.
We develop a hydrodynamic theory for an electron system exhibiting the anomalous Hall effect, and show that an additional anomalous Hall effect is induced by a vorticity generated near boundaries. We calculate the momentum flux and force proportional to the electric field using linear response theory. The hydrodynamic equation is obtained by replacing the local electric field with the electric current, focusing on a scale that is sufficiently larger than the mean free path. It is demonstrated that there is a coupling between a vorticity of an electric current and a magnetization which generate…
An apparent h/fe Aharonov-Bohm flux period, where f is an integer, has been reported in coherent quantum Hall devices. Such sub-period is not expected for non-interacting electrons and thus is thought to result from interelectron Coulomb interaction. Here we report experiments in a Fabry-Perot interferometer comprised of two wide constrictions enclosing an electron island. By carefully tuning the constriction front gates, we find a regime where interference oscillations with period h/2e persist throughout the transition between the integer quantum Hall plateaus 2 and 3, including half-filling.…
We report on our theoretical investigation of the effects of the confining potential profile and sample size on the electron velocity distribution in (narrow) quantum-Hall systems. The electrostatic properties of the electron system are obtained by the Thomas-Fermi-Poisson nonlinear screening theory. The electron velocity distribution as a function of the lateral coordinate is obtained from the slope of the screened potential at the Fermi level and within the incompressible strips (ISs). We compare our findings with the recent experiments.
We calculate spin Hall conductivities in the two dimensional electron systems with Rashba spin-orbit interaction. The salient feature is that, apart from the usual spin-Hall conductivity σ^z_{xy} which corresponds to the induction of out-of-plane spin-current due to the application of transverse charge current, there is a novel spin-Hall conductivity σ^\perp_{xy} which arises due to the induction of transverse spin-polarized current in the transverse direction by the application of in-plane spin-polarized current. This phenomenon which we call as `spin-spin' Hall effect is a spin analog of con…
We consider the impact of electron-electron interactions on the temperature dependence of the anomalous Hall effect in disordered conductors. The microscopic analysis is carried out within the diagrammatic approach of the linear response Kubo-Streda formula with an account of both extrinsic skew-scattering and side-jump mechanisms of the anomalous Hall effect arising in the presence of spin-orbit coupling. We demonstrate the importance of electron interactions in the Cooper channel even for nominally non-superconducting materials and find that the corresponding low-temperature dependence of th…
We report experimental observation of the reentrant integer quantum Hall effect in graphene, appearing in the N$=$2 Landau level. Similar to high-mobility GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures, the effect is due to a competition between incompressible fractional quantum Hall states, and electron solid phases. The tunability of graphene allows us to measure the $B$-$T$ phase diagram of the electron-solid phase. The hierarchy of reentrant states suggest spin and valley degrees of freedom play a role in determining the ground state energy. We find that the melting temperature scales with magnetic field, a…
We present a theory for a mesoscopic turnstile that produces spatially separated streams of electrons and holes along edge states in the quantum Hall regime. For a broad range of frequencies in the non-adiabatic regime the turnstile operation is found to be ideal, producing one electron and one hole per cycle. The accuracy of the turnstile operation is characterized by the fluctuations of the transferred charge per cycle. The fluctuations are found to be negligibly small in the ideal regime.
We construct useful sets of one-particle states in the quantum Hall system based on the von Neumann lattice. Using the set of momentum states, we develop a field-theoretical formalism and apply the formalism to the system subjected to a periodic potential. The topological formula of the Hall conductance written by the winding number of propagator is generalized to Bloch electrons. The relation between the winding number and the Chern number is clarified.
A scanning probe technique was used to obtain a high-resolution map of the random electrostatic potential inside the quantum Hall liquid. A sharp metal tip, scanned above a semiconductor surface, sensed charges in an embedded two-dimensional electron gas. Under quantum Hall effect conditions, applying a positive voltage to the tip locally enhanced the 2D electron density and created a ``bubble'' of electrons in an otherwise unoccupied Landau level. As the tip scanned along the sample surface, the bubble followed underneath. The tip sensed the motions of single electrons entering or leaving the…
Ballistic transport of hot electrons in a quantum Hall edge channel is attractive for studying electronic analog of quantum optics, where the edge potential profile is an important parameter that governs the charge velocity and scattering by longitudinal-optical (LO) phonons. Here we use a parallel double gate to control the electric field of the edge potential, and investigate the ballistic length of the channel by using hot-electron spectroscopy. The ballistic length is significantly enhanced by reducing the LO phonon scattering rate in the tailored potential.
We address the quantum statistics of electrons created in the low-energy edge-state Hilbert space sector of incompressible fractional quantum Hall states, considering the possibility that they may not satisfy Fermi statistics. We argue that this property is not a priori obvious, and present numerical evidence based on finite-size exact-diagonalization calculations that it does not hold in general. We discuss different possible forms for the expression for the electron creation operator in terms of edge boson fields and show that none are consistent with our numerical results on finite-size fil…
The hydrodynamic regime of charge transport has been recently realized in high-quality conductors. In the hydrodynamic as well as in the Ohmic regimes the main part of the Hall resistance of a long sample is determined by the balance between the Lorentz force and the electric force, acting on conduction electrons. Experimentally observed deviations of the Hall resistance in hydrodynamic samples from such the ''standard'' value are usually associated with the Hall viscosity term in the Navier-Stokes equation. In this work we theoretically study the Hall effect in a Poiseuille flow of a two-dime…
Most functionalities of modern electronic circuits rely on the possibility to modify the path fol- lowed by the electrons using, e.g. field effect transistors. Here we discuss the interplay between the modification of this path and the quantum dynamics of the electronic flow. Specifically, we study the propagation of charge pulses through the edge states of a two-dimensional electron gas in the quantum Hall regime. By sending radio-frequency (RF) excitations on a top gate capacitively coupled to the electron gas, we manipulate these edge state dynamically. We find that a fast RF change of the …
It is shown that a flux of unpolarized electrons across a symmetric double barrier quantum well induces a spin polarization inside the well. Besides, the transmitted current acquires a spin polarized component and the spin-Hall current flows in the planar direction. These phenomena are due to a combined effect of Dresselhaus interaction and the spin-orbit interaction induced by gradients of heterostructure material parameters. In contrast to previous studies of the spin filtering effect, we predict that it can be observed in case of an isotropic distribution of incident electrons.
In this work we solve thermo-hydrodynamical equations considering a two dimensional electron system in the integer quantum Hall regime, to calculate the spatial distribution of the local electron temperature. We start from the self-consistently calculated electrostatic and electrochemical potentials in equilibrium. Next, by imposing an external current, we investigate the variations of the electron temperature in the linear-response regime. Here a local relation between the electron density and conductivity tensor elements is assumed. Following the Ohm's law we obtain local current densities a…
Observations of electron-hole asymmetry in transport through graphene devices at high magnetic field challenge prevalent models of the graphene quantum Hall effect. Here, we study this asymmetry both in conventional magnetotransport and in scanning gate microscopy maps measured in an encapsulated graphene constriction. We reveal that the presence of upstream modes and local doping in the vicinity of electrical contacts leads to a totally different picture of topological breakdown for electrons and holes, explaining the observed asymmetry.
We have studied magnetotransport of a degenerate two-dimensional electron gas in a Hall sample in the Knudsen regime, when the mean free paths of electrons with respect to their collisions with each other and with impurities are much larger than the width of the sample. In contrast to the usually considered symmetric sample, whose both its edges reflect electrons diffusely, we considered an asymmetric sample, one edge of which reflects them diffusely, while the other specularly. It is shown that in such structure in low magnetic fields the Hall coefficient is parametrically large in comparison…
We study the plateaux of the integer quantum Hall resistance in a bilayer electron system in tilted magnetic fields. In a narrow range of tilt angles and at certain magnetic fields, the plateau level deviates appreciably from the quantized value with no dissipative transport emerging. A qualitative account of the effect is given in terms of decoupling of the edge states corresponding to different electron layers/Landau levels.
The influence of microwave irradiation on dissipative and Hall resistance in high-quality bilayer electron systems is investigated experimentally. We observe a deviation from odd symmetry under magnetic field reversal in the microwave-induced Hall resistance $ΔR_{xy}$ whereas the dissipative resistance $ΔR_{xx}$ obeys even symmetry. Studies of $ΔR_{xy}$ as a function of the microwave electric field and polarization exhibit a strong and non-trivial power and polarization dependence. The obtained results are discussed in connection to existing theoretical models of microwave-induced photoconduct…
