3,142 research outputs found
Reliable postprocessing improvement of van der Waals heterostructures
The successful assembly of heterostructures consisting of several layers of
different 2D materials in arbitrary order by exploiting van der Waals forces
has truly been a game changer in the field of low dimensional physics. For
instance, the encapsulation of graphene or MoS2 between atomically flat
hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) layers with strong affinity and graphitic gates
that screen charge impurity disorder provided access to a plethora of
interesting physical phenomena by drastically boosting the device quality. The
encapsulation is accompanied by a self-cleansing effect at the interfaces. The
otherwise predominant charged impurity disorder is minimized and random strain
fluctuations ultimately constitute the main source of residual disorder.
Despite these advances, the fabricated heterostructures still vary notably in
their performance. While some achieve record mobilities, others only possess
mediocre quality. Here, we report a reliable method to improve fully completed
van der Waals heterostructure devices with a straightforward post-processing
surface treatment based on thermal annealing and contact mode AFM. The impact
is demonstrated by comparing magnetotransport measurements before and after the
AFM treatment on one and the same device as well as on a larger set of treated
and untreated devices to collect device statistics. Both the low temperature
properties as well as the room temperature electrical characteristics, as
relevant for applications, improve on average substantially. We surmise that
the main beneficial effect arises from reducing nanometer scale corrugations at
the interfaces, i.e. the detrimental impact of random strain fluctuations
Transconductance fluctuations as a probe for interaction induced quantum Hall states in graphene
Transport measurements normally provide a macroscopic, averaged view of the
sample, so that disorder prevents the observation of fragile interaction
induced states. Here, we demonstrate that transconductance fluctuations in a
graphene field effect transistor reflect charge localization phenomena on the
nanometer scale due to the formation of a dot network which forms near
incompressible quantum states. These fluctuations give access to fragile
broken-symmetry and fractional quantum Hall states even though these states
remain hidden in conventional magnetotransport quantities.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Even denominator fractional quantum Hall states in higher Landau levels of graphene
An important development in the field of the fractional quantum Hall effect
has been the proposal that the 5/2 state observed in the Landau level with
orbital index of two dimensional electrons in a GaAs quantum well
originates from a chiral -wave paired state of composite fermions which are
topological bound states of electrons and quantized vortices. This state is
theoretically described by a "Pfaffian" wave function or its hole partner
called the anti-Pfaffian, whose excitations are neither fermions nor bosons but
Majorana quasiparticles obeying non-Abelian braid statistics. This has inspired
ideas on fault-tolerant topological quantum computation and has also instigated
a search for other states with exotic quasiparticles. Here we report
experiments on monolayer graphene that show clear evidence for unexpected
even-denominator fractional quantum Hall physics in the Landau level. We
numerically investigate the known candidate states for the even-denominator
fractional quantum Hall effect, including the Pfaffian, the particle-hole
symmetric Pfaffian, and the 221-parton states, and conclude that, among these,
the 221-parton appears a potentially suitable candidate to describe the
experimentally observed state. Like the Pfaffian, this state is believed to
harbour quasi-particles with non-Abelian braid statistic
The microscopic nature of localization in the quantum Hall effect
The quantum Hall effect arises from the interplay between localized and
extended states that form when electrons, confined to two dimensions, are
subject to a perpendicular magnetic field. The effect involves exact
quantization of all the electronic transport properties due to particle
localization. In the conventional theory of the quantum Hall effect,
strong-field localization is associated with a single-particle drift motion of
electrons along contours of constant disorder potential. Transport experiments
that probe the extended states in the transition regions between quantum Hall
phases have been used to test both the theory and its implications for quantum
Hall phase transitions. Although several experiments on highly disordered
samples have affirmed the validity of the single-particle picture, other
experiments and some recent theories have found deviations from the predicted
universal behaviour. Here we use a scanning single-electron transistor to probe
the individual localized states, which we find to be strikingly different from
the predictions of single-particle theory. The states are mainly determined by
Coulomb interactions, and appear only when quantization of kinetic energy
limits the screening ability of electrons. We conclude that the quantum Hall
effect has a greater diversity of regimes and phase transitions than predicted
by the single-particle framework. Our experiments suggest a unified picture of
localization in which the single-particle model is valid only in the limit of
strong disorder
Classification of Higher Dimensional Spacetimes
We algebraically classify some higher dimensional spacetimes, including a
number of vacuum solutions of the Einstein field equations which can represent
higher dimensional black holes. We discuss some consequences of this work.Comment: 16 pages, 1 Tabl
Radiation induced zero-resistance states in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures: Voltage-current characteristics and intensity dependence at the resistance minima
High mobility two-dimensional electron systems exhibit vanishing resistance
over broad magnetic field intervals upon excitation with microwaves, with a
characteristic reduction of the resistance with increasing radiation intensity
at the resistance minima. Here, we report experimental results examining the
voltage - current characteristics, and the resistance at the minima vs. the
microwave power. The findings indicate that a non-linear V-I curve in the
absence of microwave excitation becomes linearized under irradiation, unlike
expectations, and they suggest a similarity between the roles of the radiation
intensity and the inverse temperature.Comment: 3 color figures; publishe
Composite fermions in periodic and random antidot lattices
The longitudinal and Hall magnetoresistance of random and periodic arrays of artificial scatterers, imposed on a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas, were investigated in the vicinity of Landau level filling factor ν=1/2. In periodic arrays, commensurability effects between the period of the antidot array and the cyclotron radius of composite fermions are observed. In addition, the Hall resistance shows a deviation from the anticipated linear dependence, reminiscent of quenching around zero magnetic field. Both effects are absent for random antidot lattices. The relative amplitude of the geometric resonances for opposite signs of the effective magnetic field and its dependence on illumination illustrate enhanced soft wall effects for composite fermions
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