A New Transport Regime in the Quantum Hall Effect

TL;DR

This study experimentally identifies a novel low-temperature transport regime near the quantum Hall-to-insulator transition, challenging existing quantum Hall, insulating, and quantum-critical models, with uncertain physical nature.

Contribution

It introduces a new transport regime in the quantum Hall effect that cannot be explained by current quantum Hall, insulating, or quantum-critical theories.

Findings

Transport data fit a simple phenomenological form

Regime is inconsistent with quantum Hall or insulator behavior

Unclear if the regime is a new state or a measurement artifact

Abstract

This paper describes an experimental identification and characterization of a new low temperature transport regime near the quantum Hall-to-insulator transition. In this regime, a wide range of transport data are compactly described by a simple phenomenological form which, on the one hand, is inconsistent with either quantum Hall or insulating behavior and, on the other hand, is also clearly at odds with a quantum-critical, or scaling, description. We are unable to determine whether this new regime represents a clearly defined state or is a consequence of finite temperature and sample-size measurements.