Particle-hole Asymmetry of Fractional Quantum Hall States in the Second Landau Level of a Two-dimensional Hole System

We report the first unambiguous observation of a fractional quantum Hall state in the Landau level of a two-dimensional hole sample at the filling factor $\nu=8/3$. We identified this state by a quantized Hall resistance and an activated temperature dependence of the longitudinal resistance and found an energy gap of 40 mK. To our surprise the particle-hole conjugate state at filling factor $\nu=7/3$ in our sample does not develop down to 6.9 mK. This observation is contrary to that in electron samples in which the 7/3 state is typically more stable than the 8/3 state. We present evidence that the asymmetry between the 7/3 and 8/3 states in our hole sample is due to Landau level mixing

Integrated Electronic Transport and Thermometry at milliKelvin Temperatures and in Strong Magnetic Fields

We fabricated a He-3 immersion cell for transport measurements of semiconductor nanostructures at ultra low temperatures and in strong magnetic fields. We have a new scheme of field-independent thermometry based on quartz tuning fork Helium-3 viscometry which monitors the local temperature of the sample's environment in real time. The operation and measurement circuitry of the quartz viscometer is described in detail. We provide evidence that the temperature of two-dimensional electron gas confined to a GaAs quantum well follows the temperature of the quartz viscometer down to 4mK

Astability and negative differential resistance of the Wigner solid

We report spontaneous narrow band oscillations in the high field Wigner solid. These oscillations are similar to the recently seen and yet unexplained oscillations in the reentrant integer quantum Hall states. The current-voltage characteristic has a region of negative differential resistance in the current biased setup and it is hysteretic in the voltage biased setup. As a consequence of the unusual breakdown, the oscillations in the Wigner solid are of the relaxation type

Effect of strain on stripe phases in the Quantum Hall regime

Spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry and preferential orientation of stripe phases in the quantum Hall regime has attracted considerable experimental and theoretical effort over the last decade. We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically that the direction of high and low resistance of the two-dimensional (2D) hole gas in the quantum Hall regime can be controlled by an external strain. Depending on the sign of the in-plane shear strain, the Hartree-Fock energy of holes or electrons is minimized when the charge density wave (CDW) is oriented along [110] or [1-10] directions. We suggest that shear strains due to internal electric fields in the growth direction are responsible for the observed orientation of CDW in pristine electron and hole samples.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Evidence for a fractional quantum Hall state with anisotropic longitudinal transport

At high magnetic fields, where the Fermi level lies in the N=0 lowest Landau level (LL), a clean two-dimensional electron system (2DES) exhibits numerous incompressible liquid phases which display the fractional quantized Hall effect (FQHE) (Das Sarma and Pinczuk, 1997). These liquid phases do not break rotational symmetry, exhibiting resistivities which are isotropic in the plane. In contrast, at lower fields, when the Fermi level lies in the $N\ge2$ third and several higher LLs, the 2DES displays a distinctly different class of collective states. In particular, near half filling of these high LLs the 2DES exhibits a strongly anisotropic longitudinal resistance at low temperatures (Lilly et al., 1999; Du et al., 1999). These "stripe" phases, which do not exhibit the quantized Hall effect, resemble nematic liquid crystals, possessing broken rotational symmetry and orientational order (Koulakov et al., 1996; Fogler et al., 1996; Moessner and Chalker, 1996; Fradkin and Kivelson, 1999; Fradkin et al, 2010). Here we report a surprising new observation: An electronic configuration in the N=1 second LL whose resistivity tensor simultaneously displays a robust fractionally quantized Hall plateau and a strongly anisotropic longitudinal resistance resembling that of the stripe phases.Comment: Nature Physics, (2011

The OPERA experiment Target Tracker

The main task of the Target Tracker detector of the long baseline neutrino oscillation OPERA experiment is to locate in which of the target elementary constituents, the lead/emulsion bricks, the neutrino interactions have occurred and also to give calorimetric information about each event. The technology used consists in walls of two planes of plastic scintillator strips, one per transverse direction. Wavelength shifting fibres collect the light signal emitted by the scintillator strips and guide it to both ends where it is read by multi-anode photomultiplier tubes. All the elements used in the construction of this detector and its main characteristics are described.Comment: 25 pages, submitted to Nuclear Instrument and Method