Modeling Subsurface Charge Accumulation Images of a Quantum Hall Liquid

TL;DR

This paper presents detailed numerical modeling of subsurface charge accumulation images in a quantum Hall liquid, enabling quantitative analysis of local electronic properties in a 2D electron system at high magnetic fields.

Contribution

The work introduces an advanced modeling approach that accurately simulates spatially resolved measurements, allowing extraction of local electronic features from experimental data.

Findings

Model results agree with simple circuit element predictions.

Simulations can reproduce spatially resolved measurements.

Quantitative extraction of electron density of states and resistance.

Abstract

Subsurface Charge Accumulation imaging is a cryogenic scanning probe technique that has recently been used to spatially probe incompressible strips formed in a two-dimensional electron system (2DES) at high magnetic fields. In this paper, we present detailed numerical modeling of these data. At a basic level, the method produces results that agree well with the predictions of models based on simple circuit elements. Moreover, the modeling method is sufficiently advanced to simulate the spatially resolved measurements. By comparing directly the simulations to the experimentally measured data, we can extract quantitatively local electronic features of the 2DES. In particular, we deduce the electron density of states inside the incompressible strips and electrical resistance across them.