Metastable resistance-anisotropy orientation of two-dimensional electrons in high Landau levels

Current Flow in the Bubble and Stripe Phases

The spontaneous ordering of spins and charges in geometric patterns is currently under scrutiny in a number of different material systems. A topic of particular interest is the interaction of such ordered phases with itinerant electrons driven by an externally imposed current. It not only provides important information on the charge ordering itself but potentially also allows manipulating the shape and symmetry of the underlying pattern if current flow is strong enough. Unfortunately, conventional transport methods probing the macroscopic resistance suffer from the fact that the voltage drop along the sample edges provides only indirect information on the bulk properties because a complex current distribution is elicited by the inhomogeneous ground state. Here, we promote the use of surface acoustic waves to study these broken-symmetry phases and specifically address the bubble and stripe phases emerging in high-quality two-dimensional electron systems in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures as prototypical examples. When driving a unidirectional current, we find a surprising discrepancy between the sound propagation probing the bulk of the sample and the voltage drop along the sample edges. Our results prove that the current-induced modifications observed in resistive transport measurements are in fact a local phenomenon only, leaving the majority of the sample unaltered. More generally, our findings shed new light on the extent to which these ordered electron phases are impacted by an external current and underline the intrinsic advantages of acoustic measurements for the study of such inhomogeneous phases.

Possible nematic to smectic phase transition in a two-dimensional electron gas at half-filling

Liquid crystalline phases of matter permeate nature and technology, with examples ranging from cell membranes to liquid-crystal displays. Remarkably, electronic liquid-crystal phases can exist in two-dimensional electron systems (2DES) at half Landau-level filling in the quantum Hall regime. Theory has predicted the existence of a liquid-crystal smectic phase that breaks both rotational and translational symmetries. However, previous experiments in 2DES are most consistent with an anisotropic nematic phase breaking only rotational symmetry. Here we report three transport phenomena at half-filling in ultra-low disorder 2DES: a non-monotonic temperature dependence of the sample resistance, dramatic onset of large time-dependent resistance fluctuations, and a sharp feature in the differential resistance suggestive of depinning. These data suggest that a sequence of symmetry-breaking phase transitions occurs as temperature is lowered: first a transition from an isotropic liquid to a nematic phase and finally to a liquid-crystal smectic phase.

In the quantum Hall regime, strong interactions lead to the formation of unconventional spatially ordered electronic states. Qian et al. present evidence for a progressive sequence of transitions from isotropic through nematic to smectic phases in half-filled quantum Hall states.

Observation of an Anisotropic Wigner Crystal

We report a new correlated phase of two-dimensional charged carriers in high magnetic fields, manifested by an anisotropic insulating behavior at low temperatures. It appears in a large range of low Landau level fillings 1/3≲ν≲2/3 in hole systems confined to wide GaAs quantum wells when the sample is tilted in magnetic field to an intermediate angle. The parallel field component (B_{∥}) leads to a crossing of the lowest two Landau levels, and an elongated hole wave function in the direction of B_{∥}. Under these conditions, the in-plane resistance exhibits an insulating behavior, with the resistance along B_{∥} about 10 times smaller than the resistance perpendicular to B_{∥}. We interpret this anisotropic insulating phase as a two-component, striped Wigner crystal.

Collective modes and the periodicity of quantum Hall stripes

We investigate the quantum Hall stripe phase at filling factor 9/2 at the microscopic level by probing the dispersion of its collective modes with the help of surface acoustic waves with wavelengths down to 60 nm. The dispersion is strongly anisotropic. It is highly dispersive and exhibits a roton minimum for wave vectors aligned along the easy transport direction. In the perpendicular direction, however, the dispersion is featureless, although not flat as predicted by theory. Oscillatory behavior in the absorption intensity of the collective mode with a wave vector perpendicular to the stripes is attributed to a commensurability effect. It allows us to extract the periodicity of the quantum Hall stripes.

Anisotropic sliding dynamics, peak effect, and metastability in stripe systems

A variety of soft and hard condensed matter systems are known to form stripe patterns. Here we use numerical simulations to analyze how such stripe states depin and slide when interacting with a random substrate and with driving in different directions with respect to the orientation of the stripes. Depending on the strength and density of the substrate disorder, we find that there can be pronounced anisotropy in the transport produced by different dynamical flow phases. We also find a disorder-induced "peak effect" similar to that observed for superconducting vortex systems, which is marked by a transition from elastic depinning to a state where the stripe structure fragments or partially disorders at depinning. Under the sudden application of a driving force, we observe pronounced metastability effects similar to those found near the order-disorder transition associated with the peak effect regime for three-dimensional superconducting vortices. The characteristic transient time required for the system to reach a steady state diverges in the region where the flow changes from elastic to disordered. We also find that anisotropy of the flow persists in the presence of thermal disorder when thermally induced particle hopping along the stripes dominates. The thermal effects can wash out the effects of the quenched disorder, leading to a thermally induced stripe state. We map out the dynamical phase diagram for this system, and discuss how our results could be explored in electron liquid crystal systems, type-1.5 superconductors, and pattern-forming colloidal assemblies.

Pinning mode resonances of 2D electron stripe phases: effect of an in-plane magnetic field

We study the anisotropic pinning-mode resonances in the rf conductivity spectra of the stripe phase of 2D electron systems around a Landau level filling of 9/2, in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field B(ip). The polarization along which the resonance is observed switches as B(ip) is applied, consistent with the reorientation of the stripes. The resonance frequency, a measure of the pinning interaction between the 2D electron systems and disorder, increases with B(ip). The magnitude of this increase indicates that disorder interaction is playing an important role in determining the stripe orientation.

Current-induced anisotropy and reordering of the electron liquid-crystal phases in a two-dimensional electron system

The correlated phases in a two-dimensional electron system with a high index partially filled Landau level are studied in transport under nonequilibrium conditions by imposing a dc-current drive. At filling 1/4 and 3/4 of these Landau levels, where the charge density wave picture predicts an isotropic bubble phase, the dc drive induces anisotropic transport behavior consistent with stripe order. The easy axis of the emerging anisotropic phase is perpendicular to the drive. At half filling the anisotropic stripe phase is stabilized by the dc drive provided drive and easy-axis directions coincide.