Edge-state tunneling through ultrashort gates

Nonequilibrated counterpropagating edge modes in the fractional quantum Hall regime

It is well established that density reconstruction at the edge of a two-dimensional electron gas takes place for hole-conjugate states in the fractional quantum Hall effect (such as v=2/3, 3/5, etc.). Such reconstruction leads, after equilibration between counterpropagating edge channels, to a downstream chiral current edge mode accompanied by upstream chiral neutral modes (carrying energy without net charge). Short equilibration length prevented thus far observation of the counterpropagating current channels-the hallmark of density reconstruction. Here, we provide evidence for such nonequilibrated counterpropagating current channels, in short regions (l=4  μm and l=0.4  μm) of fractional filling v=2/3 and, unexpectedly, v=1/3, sandwiched between two regions of integer filling v=1. Rather than a two-terminal fractional conductance, the conductance exhibited a significant ascension towards unity quantum conductance (GQ=e(2)/h) at or near the fractional plateaus. We attribute this conductance rise to the presence of a nonequilibrated channel in the fractional short regions.