Fractional quantum Hall effect

Last updated

The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) is a physical phenomenon in which the Hall conductance of 2-dimensional (2D) electrons shows precisely quantized plateaus at fractional values of , where e is the electron charge and h is the Planck constant. It is a property of a collective state in which electrons bind magnetic flux lines to make new quasiparticles, and excitations have a fractional elementary charge and possibly also fractional statistics. The 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Robert Laughlin, Horst Störmer, and Daniel Tsui "for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations". [1] [2] The microscopic origin of the FQHE is a major research topic in condensed matter physics.

Contents

Descriptions

Unsolved problem in physics:
What mechanism explains the existence of the ν=5/2 state in the fractional quantum Hall effect?

The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) is a collective behavior in a 2D system of electrons. In particular magnetic fields, the electron gas condenses into a remarkable liquid state, which is very delicate, requiring high quality material with a low carrier concentration, and extremely low temperatures. As in the integer quantum Hall effect, the Hall resistance undergoes certain quantum Hall transitions to form a series of plateaus. Each particular value of the magnetic field corresponds to a filling factor (the ratio of electrons to magnetic flux quanta)

where p and q are integers with no common factors. Here q turns out to be an odd number with the exception of two filling factors 5/2 and 7/2. The principal series of such fractions are

and

Fractionally charged quasiparticles are neither bosons nor fermions and exhibit anyonic statistics. The fractional quantum Hall effect continues to be influential in theories about topological order. Certain fractional quantum Hall phases appear to have the right properties for building a topological quantum computer.

History and developments

The FQHE was experimentally discovered in 1982 by Daniel Tsui and Horst Störmer, in experiments performed on heterostructures made out of gallium arsenide developed by Arthur Gossard.

There were several major steps in the theory of the FQHE.

Tsui, Störmer, and Robert B. Laughlin were awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work.

Evidence for fractionally-charged quasiparticles

Experiments have reported results that specifically support the understanding that there are fractionally-charged quasiparticles in an electron gas under FQHE conditions.

In 1995, the fractional charge of Laughlin quasiparticles was measured directly in a quantum antidot electrometer at Stony Brook University, New York. [8] In 1997, two groups of physicists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and at the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique laboratory near Paris, [9] detected such quasiparticles carrying an electric current, through measuring quantum shot noise [10] [11] Both of these experiments have been confirmed with certainty.[ citation needed ]

A more recent experiment, [12] measures the quasiparticle charge.

Impact

The FQH effect shows the limits of Landau's symmetry breaking theory. Previously it was held that the symmetry breaking theory could explain all the important concepts and properties of forms of matter. According to this view, the only thing to be done was to apply the symmetry breaking theory to all different kinds of phases and phase transitions. [13] From this perspective, the importance of the FQHE discovered by Tsui, Stormer, and Gossard is notable for contesting old perspectives.

The existence of FQH liquids suggests that there is much more to discover beyond the present symmetry breaking paradigm in condensed matter physics. Different FQH states all have the same symmetry and cannot be described by symmetry breaking theory. The associated fractional charge, fractional statistics, non-Abelian statistics, chiral edge states, etc. demonstrate the power and the fascination of emergence in many-body systems. Thus FQH states represent new states of matter that contain a completely new kind of order—topological order. For example, properties once deemed isotropic for all materials may be anisotropic in 2D planes. The new type of orders represented by FQH states greatly enrich our understanding of quantum phases and quantum phase transitions. [14] [15]

See also

Notes

  1. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1998". www.nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2018-03-28.
  2. Schwarzschild, Bertram (1998). "Physics Nobel Prize Goes to Tsui, Stormer and Laughlin for the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect". Physics Today. 51 (12): 17–19. Bibcode:1998PhT....51l..17S. doi:10.1063/1.882480. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  3. An, Sanghun; Jiang, P.; Choi, H.; Kang, W.; Simon, S. H.; Pfeiffer, L. N.; West, K. W.; Baldwin, K. W. (2011). "Braiding of Abelian and Non-Abelian Anyons in the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect". arXiv: 1112.3400 [cond-mat.mes-hall].
  4. Greiter, M. (1994). "Microscopic formulation of the hierarchy of quantized Hall states". Physics Letters B . 336 (1): 48–53. arXiv: cond-mat/9311062 . Bibcode:1994PhLB..336...48G. doi:10.1016/0370-2693(94)00957-0. S2CID   119433766.
  5. MacDonald, A.H.; Aers, G.C.; Dharma-wardana, M.W.C. (1985). "Hierarchy of plasmas for fractional quantum Hall states". Physical Review B . 31 (8): 5529–5532. Bibcode:1985PhRvB..31.5529M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.31.5529. PMID   9936538.
  6. Moore, G.; Read, N. (1990). "Nonabelions in the fractional quantum Hall effect". Nucl. Phys. B360 (2): 362. Bibcode:1991NuPhB.360..362M. doi: 10.1016/0550-3213(91)90407-O .
  7. Hansson, T.H.; Hermanns, M.; Simon, S.H.; Viefers, S.F. (2017). "Quantum Hall physics: Hierarchies and conformal field theory techniques". Rev. Mod. Phys. 89 (2): 025005. arXiv: 1601.01697 . Bibcode:2017RvMP...89b5005H. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.89.025005. S2CID   118614055.
  8. Goldman, V.J.; Su, B. (1995). "Resonant Tunneling in the Quantum Hall Regime: Measurement of Fractional Charge". Science . 267 (5200): 1010–2. Bibcode:1995Sci...267.1010G. doi:10.1126/science.267.5200.1010. PMID   17811442. S2CID   45371551.
  9. L. Saminadayar; D. C. Glattli; Y. Jin; B. Etienne (1997). "Observation of the e/3 fractionally charged Laughlin quasiparticle". Physical Review Letters . 79 (13): 2526–2529. arXiv: cond-mat/9706307 . Bibcode:1997PhRvL..79.2526S. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.79.2526. S2CID   119425609.
  10. "Fractional charge carriers discovered". Physics World . 24 October 1997. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
  11. R. de-Picciotto; M. Reznikov; M. Heiblum; V. Umansky; G. Bunin; D. Mahalu (1997). "Direct observation of a fractional charge". Nature . 389 (6647): 162. arXiv: cond-mat/9707289 . Bibcode:1997Natur.389..162D. doi:10.1038/38241. S2CID   4310360.
  12. J. Martin; S. Ilani; B. Verdene; J. Smet; V. Umansky; D. Mahalu; D. Schuh; G. Abstreiter; A. Yacoby (2004). "Localization of Fractionally Charged Quasi Particles". Science . 305 (5686): 980–3. Bibcode:2004Sci...305..980M. doi:10.1126/science.1099950. PMID   15310895. S2CID   2859577.
  13. Rychkov VS, Borlenghi S, Jaffres H, Fert A, Waintal X (August 2009). "Spin torque and waviness in magnetic multilayers: a bridge between Valet-Fert theory and quantum approaches". Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 (6): 066602. arXiv: 0902.4360 . Bibcode:2009PhRvL.103f6602R. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.066602. PMID   19792592. S2CID   209013.
  14. Callaway DJE (April 1991). "Random matrices, fractional statistics, and the quantum Hall effect". Phys. Rev. B. 43 (10): 8641–8643. Bibcode:1991PhRvB..43.8641C. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.43.8641. PMID   9996505.
  15. Selby, N. S.; Crawford, M.; Tracy, L.; Reno, J. L.; Pan, W. (2014-09-01). "In situ biaxial rotation at low-temperatures in high magnetic fields". Review of Scientific Instruments. 85 (9): 095116. Bibcode:2014RScI...85i5116S. doi: 10.1063/1.4896100 . ISSN   0034-6748. PMID   25273781.

Related Research Articles

The quantum Hall effect is a quantized version of the Hall effect which is observed in two-dimensional electron systems subjected to low temperatures and strong magnetic fields, in which the Hall resistance Rxy exhibits steps that take on the quantized values

The elementary charge, usually denoted by e, is a fundamental physical constant, defined as the electric charge carried by a single proton or, equivalently, the magnitude of the negative electric charge carried by a single electron, which has charge −1 e.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fermi liquid theory</span> Theoretical model in physics

Fermi liquid theory is a theoretical model of interacting fermions that describes the normal state of the conduction electrons in most metals at sufficiently low temperatures. The theory describes the behavior of many-body systems of particles in which the interactions between particles may be strong. The phenomenological theory of Fermi liquids was introduced by the Soviet physicist Lev Davidovich Landau in 1956, and later developed by Alexei Abrikosov and Isaak Khalatnikov using diagrammatic perturbation theory. The theory explains why some of the properties of an interacting fermion system are very similar to those of the ideal Fermi gas, and why other properties differ.

In physics, an anyon is a type of quasiparticle so far observed only in two-dimensional systems. In three-dimensional systems, only two kinds of elementary particles are seen: fermions and bosons. Anyons have statistical properties intermediate between fermions and bosons. In general, the operation of exchanging two identical particles, although it may cause a global phase shift, cannot affect observables. Anyons are generally classified as abelian or non-abelian. Abelian anyons, detected by two experiments in 2020, play a major role in the fractional quantum Hall effect.

In condensed matter physics, a quasiparticle is a concept used to describe a collective behavior of a group of particles that can be treated as if they were a single particle. Formally, quasiparticles and collective excitations are closely related phenomena that arise when a microscopically complicated system such as a solid behaves as if it contained different weakly interacting particles in vacuum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luttinger liquid</span> Theoretical model describing interacting fermions in a one-dimensional conductor

A Luttinger liquid, or Tomonaga–Luttinger liquid, is a theoretical model describing interacting electrons in a one-dimensional conductor. Such a model is necessary as the commonly used Fermi liquid model breaks down for one dimension.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Topological order</span> Type of order at absolute zero

In physics, topological order is a kind of order in the zero-temperature phase of matter. Macroscopically, topological order is defined and described by robust ground state degeneracy and quantized non-abelian geometric phases of degenerate ground states. Microscopically, topological orders correspond to patterns of long-range quantum entanglement. States with different topological orders cannot change into each other without a phase transition.

A two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is a scientific model in solid-state physics. It is an electron gas that is free to move in two dimensions, but tightly confined in the third. This tight confinement leads to quantized energy levels for motion in the third direction, which can then be ignored for most problems. Thus the electrons appear to be a 2D sheet embedded in a 3D world. The analogous construct of holes is called a two-dimensional hole gas (2DHG), and such systems have many useful and interesting properties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wigner crystal</span> Solid (crystalline) phase of electrons

A Wigner crystal is the solid (crystalline) phase of electrons first predicted by Eugene Wigner in 1934. A gas of electrons moving in a uniform, inert, neutralizing background will crystallize and form a lattice if the electron density is less than a critical value. This is because the potential energy dominates the kinetic energy at low densities, so the detailed spatial arrangement of the electrons becomes important. To minimize the potential energy, the electrons form a bcc lattice in 3D, a triangular lattice in 2D and an evenly spaced lattice in 1D. Most experimentally observed Wigner clusters exist due to the presence of the external confinement, i.e. external potential trap. As a consequence, deviations from the b.c.c or triangular lattice are observed. A crystalline state of the 2D electron gas can also be realized by applying a sufficiently strong magnetic field. However, it is still not clear whether it is the Wigner crystallization that has led to observation of insulating behaviour in magnetotransport measurements on 2D electron systems, since other candidates are present, such as Anderson localization.

A topological quantum computer is a theoretical quantum computer proposed by Russian-American physicist Alexei Kitaev in 1997. It employs quasiparticles in two-dimensional systems, called anyons, whose world lines pass around one another to form braids in a three-dimensional spacetime. These braids form the logic gates that make up the computer. The advantage of a quantum computer based on quantum braids over using trapped quantum particles is that the former is much more stable. Small, cumulative perturbations can cause quantum states to decohere and introduce errors in the computation, but such small perturbations do not change the braids' topological properties. This is like the effort required to cut a string and reattach the ends to form a different braid, as opposed to a ball bumping into a wall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Majorana fermion</span> Fermion that is its own antiparticle

A Majorana fermion, also referred to as a Majorana particle, is a fermion that is its own antiparticle. They were hypothesised by Ettore Majorana in 1937. The term is sometimes used in opposition to a Dirac fermion, which describes fermions that are not their own antiparticles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sankar Das Sarma</span>

Sankar Das Sarma is an India-born American theoretical condensed matter physicist. He has been a member of the department of physics at University of Maryland, College Park since 1980.

In condensed matter physics, the Laughlin wavefunction is an ansatz, proposed by Robert Laughlin for the ground state of a two-dimensional electron gas placed in a uniform background magnetic field in the presence of a uniform jellium background when the filling factor of the lowest Landau level is where is an odd positive integer. It was constructed to explain the observation of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), and predicted the existence of additional states as well as quasiparticle excitations with fractional electric charge , both of which were later experimentally observed. Laughlin received one third of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1998 for this discovery.

A composite fermion is the topological bound state of an electron and an even number of quantized vortices, sometimes visually pictured as the bound state of an electron and, attached, an even number of magnetic flux quanta. Composite fermions were originally envisioned in the context of the fractional quantum Hall effect, but subsequently took on a life of their own, exhibiting many other consequences and phenomena.

In condensed matter physics, a quantum spin liquid is a phase of matter that can be formed by interacting quantum spins in certain magnetic materials. Quantum spin liquids (QSL) are generally characterized by their long-range quantum entanglement, fractionalized excitations, and absence of ordinary magnetic order.

In quantum mechanics, fractionalization is the phenomenon whereby the quasiparticles of a system cannot be constructed as combinations of its elementary constituents. One of the earliest and most prominent examples is the fractional quantum Hall effect, where the constituent particles are electrons but the quasiparticles carry fractions of the electron charge. Fractionalization can be understood as deconfinement of quasiparticles that together are viewed as comprising the elementary constituents. In the case of spin–charge separation, for example, the electron can be viewed as a bound state of a 'spinon' and a 'holon ', which under certain conditions can become free to move separately.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quantum oscillations</span> Experiments used to map the Fermi surface

In condensed matter physics, quantum oscillations describes a series of related experimental techniques used to map the Fermi surface of a metal in the presence of a strong magnetic field. These techniques are based on the principle of Landau quantization of Fermions moving in a magnetic field. For a gas of free fermions in a strong magnetic field, the energy levels are quantized into bands, called the Landau levels, whose separation is proportional to the strength of the magnetic field. In a quantum oscillation experiment, the external magnetic field is varied, which causes the Landau levels to pass over the Fermi surface, which in turn results in oscillations of the electronic density of states at the Fermi level; this produces oscillations in the many material properties which depend on this, including resistance, Hall resistance, and magnetic susceptibility. Observation of quantum oscillations in a material is considered a signature of Fermi liquid behaviour.

The term Dirac matter refers to a class of condensed matter systems which can be effectively described by the Dirac equation. Even though the Dirac equation itself was formulated for fermions, the quasi-particles present within Dirac matter can be of any statistics. As a consequence, Dirac matter can be distinguished in fermionic, bosonic or anyonic Dirac matter. Prominent examples of Dirac matter are graphene and other Dirac semimetals, topological insulators, Weyl semimetals, various high-temperature superconductors with -wave pairing and liquid helium-3. The effective theory of such systems is classified by a specific choice of the Dirac mass, the Dirac velocity, the gamma matrices and the space-time curvature. The universal treatment of the class of Dirac matter in terms of an effective theory leads to a common features with respect to the density of states, the heat capacity and impurity scattering.

Fractional Chern insulators (FCIs) are lattice generalizations of the fractional quantum Hall effect that have been studied theoretically since 1993 and have been studied more intensely since early 2010. They were first predicted to exist in topological flat bands carrying Chern numbers. They can appear in topologically non-trivial band structures even in the absence of the large magnetic fields needed for the fractional quantum Hall effect. In principle, they can also occur in partially filled bands with trivial band structures if the inter-electron interaction is unusual. They promise physical realizations at lower magnetic fields, higher temperatures, and with shorter characteristic length scales compared to their continuum counterparts. FCIs were initially studied by adding electron-electron interactions to a fractionally filled Chern insulator, in one-body models where the Chern band is quasi-flat, at zero magnetic field. The FCIs exhibit a fractional quantized Hall conductance.

References