Electron-Hole Asymmetric Chiral Breakdown of Reentrant Quantum Hall States

TL;DR

This study investigates the breakdown behavior of reentrant integer quantum Hall states, revealing a chiral phase boundary spreading that depends on the electron or hole nature of the state, providing insights into their microscopic nature.

Contribution

It uncovers the chiral spreading of breakdown regions in RIQH states and links this behavior to the electron- or hole-like character of the phase, offering new understanding of their microscopic properties.

Findings

Breakdown signatures spread chirally from contacts.

The spreading direction depends on electron or hole character.

Breakdown involves a phase boundary between broken and unbroken regions.

Abstract

Reentrant integer quantum Hall (RIQH) states are believed to be correlated electron solid phases, though their microscopic description remains unclear. As bias current increases, longitudinal and Hall resistivities measured for these states exhibit multiple sharp breakdown transitions, a signature unique to RIQH states. A comparison of RIQH breakdown characteristics at multiple voltage probes indicates that these signatures can be ascribed to a phase boundary between broken-down and unbroken regions, spreading chirally from source and drain contacts as a function of bias current and passing voltage probes one by one. The chiral sense of the spreading is not set by the chirality of the edge state itself, instead depending on electron- or hole-like character of the RIQH state.