Evidence for a liquid crystal phase transition in two-dimensional electrons in high Landau levels.
- California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
- Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ
Transport measurements of high-mobility two-dimensional electron systems at low temperatures have revealed a large resistance anisotropy around half-filling of excited Landau levels. These results have been attributed to electronic stripe-phase formation with spontaneously broken orientational symmetry. Mechanisms which are known to break the orientational symmetry include poorly-understood crystal structure effects and an in-plane magnetic field, B{sub {parallel}}. Here we report that a large B{sub {parallel}} also causes the transport anisotropy to persist up to much higher temperatures. In this regime, we find that the anisotropic resistance scales sublinearly with B{sub {parallel}}/T. These observations support the proposal that the transition from anisotropic to isotropic transport reflects a liquid crystal phase transition where local stripe order persists even in the isotropic regime.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 946971
- Report Number(s):
- SAND2003-2317J; TRN: US200904%%362
- Journal Information:
- Proposed for publication in the Journal De Physique IV., Journal Name: Proposed for publication in the Journal De Physique IV.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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