12.

1 Introduction 673

longitudinal resistivity seems to vanish, while it has narrow spikes in

the regimes where pZaris changing.
The above-described phenomena (or, in a narrower sense, just the
emergence of plateaus in the field dependence of pZy) have become
known as the Quantum Hall Effect (QHE). It was discovered by mea-
surements on Si MOSFET structures by Klaus von Klitzing in 1980
[434],and later found also in GaAs-based devices. The plateau values
of pxarwere identified as

i=1,2, ... (12.10)

The highest plateau value we see in Fig. 12.2 is i = 6 but in another

measurement [54], even i = 12 was clearly visible2. It must be remarked,
though, that from i = 6 upwards only the even-integer plateaus are
recognizable; this is an indication of the importance of the spin degree
of freedom (we return to this problem at the end of the chapter).
The accuracy of quantization is extremely high, at least lo-*. Let
us remark that in three dimensions, measuring the resistivity with this
accuracy would require a comparably accurate characterization of the
sample geometry3. However, we do not have to bother about this in
the c;uire under study, because in two dimensions, the Hall resistance
R,, = -&,/Iz = -LyE,/j,L, = pzy is the same as the Hall resistivity4.
The vanishing of pzs in the plateau regions is concluded from the fact
that there is no measurable voltage drop in the x direction (j 10-14V).
In this sense only, the system is an ideal conductor but this does not
mean in infinite a%,. Quite on the contrary, it follows from (12.7) that
if pzo # 0 then a,% and pzx vanish together.
It is useful to restate the effect in terms of the Hall conductivity
ayx. The classical result (12.3) is that oar,is a linear function of the
aBy now, this is a standard achievement in laboratory exercises for students.
There is no doubt that many more Quantum Hall states could be identified, especially
by counting the spikes of pzz. However, there seems to be no point to struggling
further in this direction because it is believed that no new physics would appear in
the higher Hall plateaus.
3The linear dimensions of a cm-sized sample should be known with the accuracy
of an atomic diameter!
4F0r the sake of simplicity, we assumed that the current density is constant. How-
ever, the conclusion holds also for a realistic non-uniform current distribution.