The
quantum Hall effect is a
quantum-mechanicalQuantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
version of the
Hall effectThe Hall effect is the production of a voltage difference across an electrical conductor, transverse to an electric current in the conductor and a magnetic field perpendicular to the current...
, observed in
two-dimensional electron systemsA two-dimensional electron gas is a gas of electrons free to move in two dimensions, but tightly confined in the third. This tight confinement leads to quantized energy levels for motion in that direction, which can then be ignored for most problems. Thus the electrons appear to be a 2D sheet...
subjected to low
temperatureTemperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...
s and strong
magnetic fieldA magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...
s, in which the Hall conductivity σ takes on the quantized values
where
e is the
elementary chargeThe elementary charge, usually denoted as e, is the electric charge carried by a single proton, or equivalently, the absolute value of the electric charge carried by a single electron. This elementary charge is a fundamental physical constant. To avoid confusion over its sign, e is sometimes called...
and
h is Planck's constant. The prefactor ν is known as the "filling factor", and can take on either integer (ν = 1, 2, 3, .. ) or rational fraction (ν = 1/3, 2/5, 3/7, 2/3, 3/5, 1/5, 2/9, 3/13, 5/2, 12/5 ...) values. The quantum Hall effect is referred to as the integer or fractional quantum Hall effect depending on whether ν is an integer or fraction respectively. The integer quantum Hall effect is very well understood, and can be simply explained in terms of single-particle orbitals of an electron in a magnetic field (see
Landau quantizationLandau quantization in quantum mechanics is the quantization of the cyclotron orbits of charged particles in magnetic fields. As a result, the charged particles can only occupy orbits with discrete energy values, called Landau levels. The Landau levels are degenerate, with the number of electrons...
). The
fractional quantum Hall effectThe fractional quantum Hall effect is a physical phenomenon in which the Hall conductance of 2D electrons shows precisely quantised plateaus at fractional values of e^2/h. It is a property of a collective state in which electrons bind magnetic flux lines to make new quasiparticles, and excitations...
is more complicated, as its existence relies fundamentally on electron–electron interactions. It is also very well understood as an integer quantum Hall effect, not of electrons but of charge-flux composites known as
composite fermionsA composite fermion is the 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...
.
Applications
The
quantizationIn physics, quantization is the process of explaining a classical understanding of physical phenomena in terms of a newer understanding known as "quantum mechanics". It is a procedure for constructing a quantum field theory starting from a classical field theory. This is a generalization of the...
of the Hall conductance has the important property of being incredibly precise. Actual measurements of the Hall conductance have been found to be integer or fractional multiples of
e2/h to nearly one part in a billion. This phenomenon, referred to as "exact quantization", has been shown to be a subtle manifestation of the principle of gauge invariance. It has allowed for the definition of a new practical standard for
electrical resistanceThe electrical resistance of an electrical element is the opposition to the passage of an electric current through that element; the inverse quantity is electrical conductance, the ease at which an electric current passes. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with the mechanical...
, based on the resistance quantum given by the von Klitzing constant
RK =
h/e2 = 25812.807557(18) Ω. This is named after
Klaus von KlitzingKlaus von Klitzing is a German physicist known for discovery of the integer quantum Hall Effect, for which he was awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physics....
, the discoverer of exact quantization. Since 1990, a fixed conventional value
RK-90 is used in resistance calibrations worldwide. The quantum Hall effect also provides an extremely precise independent determination of the fine structure constant, a quantity of fundamental importance in
quantum electrodynamicsQuantum electrodynamics is the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and special relativity is achieved...
.
History
The integer quantization of the Hall conductance was originally predicted by Ando, Matsumoto, and Uemura in 1975, on the basis of an approximate calculation which they themselves did not believe to be true. Several workers subsequently observed the effect in experiments carried out on the inversion layer of
MOSFETThe metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor is a transistor used for amplifying or switching electronic signals. The basic principle of this kind of transistor was first patented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925...
s. It was only in 1980 that
Klaus von KlitzingKlaus von Klitzing is a German physicist known for discovery of the integer quantum Hall Effect, for which he was awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physics....
, working with samples developed by
Michael PepperSir Michael Pepper FRS FInstP is a British physicist notable for his work in semiconductor nanostructures.-Education:Sir Michael went to school at St Marylebone Grammar, then gained a BSc and PhD from the University of Reading and an MA and ScD from Cambridge University.-Career:Sir Michael was a...
and Gerhard Dorda, made the unexpected discovery that the Hall conductivity was
exactly quantized. For this finding, von Klitzing was awarded the 1985
Nobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
. The link between exact quantization and gauge invariance was subsequently found by
Robert LaughlinRobert Betts Laughlin is a professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University. Along with Horst L. Störmer of Columbia University and Daniel C. Tsui of Princeton University, he was awarded a share of the 1998 Nobel Prize in physics for their explanation of the fractional quantum Hall...
. Most integer quantum Hall experiments are now performed on gallium arsenide heterostructures, although many other semiconductor materials can be used. In 2007, the integer quantum Hall effect was reported in
grapheneGraphene is an allotrope of carbon, whose structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. The term graphene was coined as a combination of graphite and the suffix -ene by Hanns-Peter Boehm, who described single-layer...
at temperatures as high as room temperature, and in the oxide ZnO-Mn
xZn
1-xO.
Integer quantum Hall effect – Landau levels
In two dimensions, when classical electrons are subjected to a magnetic field they follow circular cyclotron orbits. When the system is treated quantum mechanically, these orbits are quantized. The energy levels of these quantized orbitals take on discrete values:
, where
ωc = eB/m is the cyclotron frequency. These orbitals are known as
Landau levelsLandau quantization in quantum mechanics is the quantization of the cyclotron orbits of charged particles in magnetic fields. As a result, the charged particles can only occupy orbits with discrete energy values, called Landau levels. The Landau levels are degenerate, with the number of electrons...
, and at weak magnetic fields, their existence gives rise to many interesting "quantum oscillations" such as the Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations and the de Haas–van Alphen effect (which is often used to map the Fermi surface of metals).
For strong magnetic fields, each Landau level is highly degenerate (i.e. there are many single particle states which have the same energy
En). Specifically, for a sample of area A, in magnetic field B, the degeneracy of each Landau level is
(where g
s represents a factor of 2 for spin degeneracy, and φ
0 is the magnetic flux quantum). For sufficiently strong B-fields, each Landau level may have so many states that all of the free electrons in the system sit in only a few Landau levels; it is in this regime where one observes the quantum Hall effect.
Mathematics
The integers that appear in the Hall effect are examples of
topological quantum numberIn physics, a topological quantum number is any quantity, in a physical theory, that takes on only one of a discrete set of values, due to topological considerations...
s. They are known in mathematics as the first Chern numbers and are closely related to
Berry's phaseIn classical and quantum mechanics, the geometric phase, Pancharatnam–Berry phase , Pancharatnam phase or most commonly Berry phase, is a phase acquired over...
. A striking model of much interest in this context is the Azbel-Harper-Hofstadter model whose quantum phase diagram is the
Hofstadter's butterflyHofstadter's butterfly is the name of a fractal structure discovered by Douglas Hofstadter, which he described in 1976 in an article on the energy levels of Bloch electrons in magnetic fields. It gives a graphical representation of the spectrum of the almost Mathieu operator for \lambda = 1 at...
shown in the figure. The vertical axis is the strength of the
magnetic fieldA magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...
and the horizontal axis is the
chemical potentialChemical potential, symbolized by μ, is a measure first described by the American engineer, chemist and mathematical physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs. It is the potential that a substance has to produce in order to alter a system...
, which fixes the electron density. The colors represent the integer Hall conductances. Warm colors represent positive integers and cold colors negative integers. The phase diagram is fractal and has structure on all scales. In the figure there is an obvious
self-similarityIn mathematics, a self-similar object is exactly or approximately similar to a part of itself . Many objects in the real world, such as coastlines, are statistically self-similar: parts of them show the same statistical properties at many scales...
.
Concerning physical mechanisms, impurities and/or particular states (e.g., edge currents) are important for both the 'integer' and 'fractional' effects. In addition, Coulomb interaction is also essential in the
fractional quantum Hall effectThe fractional quantum Hall effect is a physical phenomenon in which the Hall conductance of 2D electrons shows precisely quantised plateaus at fractional values of e^2/h. It is a property of a collective state in which electrons bind magnetic flux lines to make new quasiparticles, and excitations...
. The observed strong similarity between integer and fractional quantum Hall effects is explained by the tendency of electrons to form bound states with an even number of magnetic flux quanta, called
composite fermionsA composite fermion is the 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...
.
See also
- Fractional quantum Hall effect
The fractional quantum Hall effect is a physical phenomenon in which the Hall conductance of 2D electrons shows precisely quantised plateaus at fractional values of e^2/h. It is a property of a collective state in which electrons bind magnetic flux lines to make new quasiparticles, and excitations...
- Composite fermions
A composite fermion is the 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...
- Hall effect
The Hall effect is the production of a voltage difference across an electrical conductor, transverse to an electric current in the conductor and a magnetic field perpendicular to the current...
- Hall probe
- Graphene
Graphene is an allotrope of carbon, whose structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. The term graphene was coined as a combination of graphite and the suffix -ene by Hanns-Peter Boehm, who described single-layer...
- Quantum spin Hall effect
The quantum spin Hall state is a state of matter proposed to exist in special, two-dimensional, semiconductors with spin-orbit coupling. The quantum spin Hall state of matter is the cousin of the integer quantum Hall state, but, unlike the latter, it does not require the application of a large...
- Coulomb potential between two current loops embedded in a magnetic field
Further reading
- 25 years of Quantum Hall Effect, K. von Klitzing, Poincaré Seminar (Paris-2004). Postscript. Pdf.
- Magnet Lab Press Release Quantum Hall Effect Observed at Room Temperature
- J. E. Avron, D. Osacdhy and R. Seiler, Physics Today, August (2003)
- Zyun F. Ezawa: Quantum Hall Effects - Field Theoretical Approach and Related Topics. World Scientific, Singapore 2008, ISBN 978-981-270-032-2
- Sankar D. Sarma, Aron Pinczuk: Perspectives in Quantum Hall Effects. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2004, ISBN 978-0-471-11216-7