Search

Microwave transmission line spectroscopy is used to observe the integer quantum Hall effect in two samples of monolayer graphene with different geometries that are resistively-coupled to a coplanar waveguide. We find plateaus in transmitted power that do not vary significantly with microwave frequency but are significantly different for two samples due to their shape. With each drop in transmitted power corresponding to an additional quantum Hall edge mode that short the transmission line to ground, these well-known quanta of conductance allow us to calibrate the sensitivity of the devices. One sample with short contact regions matched the sensitivity expected when considering only the quantum Hall conductance of $\nu e^2/h$; another sample with long contact regions demonstrated a nearly three-fold enhancement in sensitivity. We model this result with a purely resistive circuit that introduces an additional resistance to explain the increased sensitivity.

Characterizing the host galaxies of astrophysical transients is important to many areas of astrophysics, including constraining the progenitor systems of core-collapse supernovae, correcting Type Ia supernova distances, and probabilistically classifying transients without photometric or spectroscopic data. Given the increasing transient discovery rate in the coming years, there is substantial utility in providing public, transparent, reproducible, and automatic characterization for large samples of transient host galaxies. Here we present Blast, a web application that ingests live streams of transient alerts, matches transients to their host galaxies, and performs photometry on coincident archival imaging data of the host galaxy. The photometry is then used to infer both global host-galaxy properties and galaxy properties within 2 kpc of the transient location by using the Prospector Bayesian inference framework, with an acceleration in evaluation speed achieved via simulation-based inference. Blast provides host-galaxy properties to users via a web browser or an application program interface. The software can be extended to support alternative photometric or SED-fitting algorithms, and can be scaled via an asynchronous worker queue across multiple compute nodes to handle the processing of large volumes of transient alerts for upcoming transient surveys. Blast has been ingesting newly discovered transients from the Transient Name Server since mid-2024, and has currently measured SED parameters for more than 6000 transients. The service is publicly available at https://blast.scimma.org/., Comment: submitted to PASP

The concept of fluidic viscosity is ubiquitous in our everyday life and for it to arise the fluidic medium must necessarily form a continuum where macroscopic properties can emerge. While a powerful concept for tangible liquids, hydrodynamic manifestation of collective flow in electronic systems such as two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) has only been shown recently to occur in graphene and GaAs/AlGaAs. Here, we present nonlocal electronic transport measurements in concentric annular rings formed in high-mobility GaAs/AlGaAs 2DEGs and the resulting data strongly suggest that viscous hydrodynamic flow can occur far away from the source-drain current region. Our conclusion of viscous electronic transport is further corroborated by simulations of the Navier-Stokes equations that are found to be in agreement with our measurements below 1K temperature. Most importantly, our work emphasizes the key role played by viscosity via electron-electron (e-e) interaction when hydrodynamic transport is restricted radially, and for which a priori should not have played a major role.

At low Landau level filling factors ($\nu$), Wigner solid phases of two-dimensional electron systems in GaAs are pinned by disorder, and exhibit a pinning mode, whose frequency is a measure of the disorder that pins the Wigner solid. Despite numerous studies spanning the last three decades, the origin of the disorder that causes the pinning and determines the pinning mode frequency remains unknown. Here we present a study of the pinning mode resonance in the low-$\nu$ Wigner solid phases of a series of ultralow-disorder GaAs quantum wells which are similar except for their varying well widths, $d$. The pinning mode frequencies,$f_p$, decrease strongly as $d$ increases, with the widest well exhibiting $f_p$ as low as $\simeq$35 MHz. The amount of reduction of \fp\ with increasing $d$ can be explained remarkably well by tails of the wave function impinging into the alloy-disordered Al$_x$Ga$_{1-x}$As barriers that contain the electrons. However, it is imperative that the model for the confinement and wave function includes the Coulomb repulsion in the growth direction between the electrons as they occupy the quantum well., Comment: accepted for publication in Phys Rev. Lett. as editors' suggestion

We present LAISS (Lightcurve Anomaly Identification and Similarity Search), an automated pipeline to detect anomalous astrophysical transients in real-time data streams. We deploy our anomaly detection model on the nightly ZTF Alert Stream via the ANTARES broker, identifying a manageable $\sim$1-5 candidates per night for expert vetting and coordinating follow-up observations. Our method leverages statistical light-curve and contextual host-galaxy features within a random forest classifier, tagging transients of rare classes (spectroscopic anomalies), of uncommon host-galaxy environments (contextual anomalies), and of peculiar or interaction-powered phenomena (behavioral anomalies). Moreover, we demonstrate the power of a low-latency ($\sim$ms) approximate similarity search method to find transient analogs with similar light-curve evolution and host-galaxy environments. We use analogs for data-driven discovery, characterization, (re-)classification, and imputation in retrospective and real-time searches. To date we have identified $\sim$50 previously known and previously missed rare transients from real-time and retrospective searches, including but not limited to: SLSNe, TDEs, SNe IIn, SNe IIb, SNe Ia-CSM, SNe Ia-91bg-like, SNe Ib, SNe Ic, SNe Ic-BL, and M31 novae. Lastly, we report the discovery of 325 total transients, all observed between 2018-2021 and absent from public catalogs ($\sim$1% of all ZTF Astronomical Transient reports to the Transient Name Server through 2021). These methods enable a systematic approach to finding the "needle in the haystack" in large-volume data streams. Because of its integration with the ANTARES broker, LAISS is built to detect exciting transients in Rubin data., Comment: 44 pages (68 pages with Appendix), 15 figures, accepted to ApJ

Low-disorder two-dimensional electron systems in the presence of a strong, perpendicular magnetic field terminate at very small Landau level filling factors in a Wigner crystal (WC), where the electrons form an ordered array to minimize the Coulomb repulsion. The nature of this exotic, many-body, quantum phase is yet to be fully understood and experimentally revealed. Here we probe one of WC's most fundamental parameters, namely the energy gap that determines its low-temperature conductivity, in record-mobility, ultra-high-purity, two-dimensional electrons confined to GaAs quantum wells. The WC domains in these samples contain $\simeq$ 1000 electrons. The measured gaps are a factor of three larger than previously reported for lower quality samples, and agree remarkably well with values predicted for the lowest-energy, intrinsic, hyper-corelated bubble defects in a WC made of flux-electron composite fermions, rather than bare electrons. The agreement is particularly noteworthy, given that the calculations are done for disorder-free composite fermion WCs, and there are no adjustable parameters. The results reflect the exceptionally high quality of the samples, and suggest that composite fermion WCs are indeed more stable compared to their electron counterparts.

In low-disorder, two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs), the fractional quantum Hall states at very small Landau level fillings ($\nu$) terminate in a Wigner solid (WS) phase, where electrons arrange themselves in a periodic array. The WS is typically pinned by the residual disorder sites and manifests an insulating behavior, with non-linear current-voltage (\textit{I-V}) and noise characteristics. We report here, measurements on an ultra-low-disorder, dilute 2DES, confined to a GaAs quantum well. In the $\nu < 1/5$ range, superimposed on a highly-insulating longitudinal resistance, the 2DES exhibits a developing fractional quantum Hall state at $\nu=1/7$, attesting to its exceptional high quality, and dominance of electron-electron interaction in the low filling regime. In the nearby insulating phases, we observe remarkable non-linear \textit{I-V} and noise characteristics as a function of increasing current, with current thresholds delineating three distinct phases of the WS: a pinned phase (P1) with very small noise, a second phase (P2) in which $dV/dI$ fluctuates between positive and negative values and is accompanied by very high noise, and a third phase (P3) where $dV/dI$ is nearly constant and small, and noise is about an order of magnitude lower than in P2. In the depinned (P2 and P3) phases, the noise spectrum also reveals well-defined peaks at frequencies that vary linearly with the applied current, suggestive of washboard frequencies. We discuss the data in light of a recent theory that proposes different dynamic phases for a driven WS.

The ground state of two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs) at low Landau level filling factors ($\nu\lesssim1/6$) has long been a topic of interest and controversy in condensed matter. Following the recent breakthrough in the quality of ultra-high-mobility GaAs 2DESs, we revisit this problem experimentally and investigate the impact of reduced disorder. In a GaAs 2DES sample with density $n=6.1\times10^{10}$ /cm$^2$ and mobility $\mu=25\times10^6$ cm$^2$/Vs, we find a deep minimum in the longitudinal magnetoresistance ($R_{xx}$) at $\nu=1/7$ when $T\simeq104$ mK. There is also a clear sign of a developing minimum in the $R_{xx}$ at $\nu=2/13$. While insulating phases are still predominant when $\nu\lesssim1/6$, these minima strongly suggest the existence of fractional quantum Hall states at filling factors that comply with the Jain sequence $\nu=p/(2mp\pm1)$ even in the very low Landau level filling limit. The magnetic field dependent activation energies deduced from the relation $R_{xx}\propto e^{E_A/2kT}$ corroborate this view, and imply the presence of pinned Wigner solid states when $\nu\neq p/(2mp\pm1)$. Similar results are seen in another sample with a lower density, further generalizing our observations., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

We describe the use of a coplanar waveguide whose slots are filled with resistive film, a resistively loaded coplanar waveguide (RLCPW), to measure two dimensional electron systems (2DES). The RLCPW applied to the sample hosting the 2DES provides a uniform metallic surface serving as a gate, to control the areal charge density of the 2DES. As a demonstration of this technique we present measurements on a Si MOSFET, and a model that successfully converts microwave transmission coefficients into conductivity of a nearby 2DES capacitively coupled to the RLCPW. We also describe the process of fabricating the highly resistive metal film required for fabrication of the RLCPW.

In this work we combine theory and experiment to study transient magnetic circular dichroism (tr-MCD) in the extreme ultraviolet spectral range (XUV) in bulk Co and CoPt. We use the \emph{ab-initio} method of real-time time-dependent density functional theory (RT-TDDFT) to simulate the magnetization dynamics in the presence of ultrafast laser pulses. From this we demonstrate how tr-MCD may be calculated using an approximation to the excited-state linear-response. We apply this approximation to Co and CoPt and show computationally that element-specific dynamics of the local spin moments can be extracted from the tr-MCD in XUV energy range, as is commonly assumed. We then compare our theoretical prediction for the tr-MCD for CoPt with experimental measurement and find excellent agreement at many different frequencies including the $M_{2 3}$-edge of Co and $N_{6 7}$- and $O_{2 3}$- edges of Pt., Comment: 4 figures

One of the most fundamental and yet elusive collective phases of an interacting electron system is the quantum Wigner crystal (WC), an ordered array of electrons expected to form when the electrons' Coulomb repulsion energy eclipses their kinetic (Fermi) energy. In low-disorder, two-dimensional (2D) electron systems, the quantum WC is known to be favored at very low temperatures ($T$) and small Landau level filling factors ($\nu$), near the termination of the fractional quantum Hall states. This WC phase exhibits an insulating behavior, reflecting its pinning by the small but finite disorder potential. An experimental determination of a $T$ vs $\nu$ phase diagram for the melting of the WC, however, has proved to be challenging. Here we use capacitance measurements to probe the 2D WC through its effective screening as a function of $T$ and $\nu$. We find that, as expected, the screening efficiency of the pinned WC is very poor at very low $T$ and improves at higher $T$ once the WC melts. Surprisingly, however, rather than monotonically changing with increasing $T$, the screening efficiency shows a well-defined maximum at a $T$ which is close to the previously-reported melting temperature of the WC. Our experimental results suggest a new method to map out a $T$ vs $\nu$ phase diagram of the magnetic-field-induced WC precisely., Comment: The formal version is published on Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 116601 (2019)

Microwave spectroscopy within the Landau filling ($\nu$) range of the integer quantum Hall effect (IQHE) has revealed pinning mode resonances signifying Wigner solids (WSs) composed of quasi-particles or -holes. We study pinning modes of WSs in wide quantum wells (WQWs) for $ 0.8\le\nu\le1.2$, varying the density, $n$, and tilting the sample by angle $\theta$ in the magnetic field. Three distinct WS phases are accessed. One phase, S1, is phenomenologically the same as the WS observed in the IQHEs of narrow QWs. The second phase, S2, exists at $\nu$ further from $\nu=1$ than S1, and requires a sufficiently large $n$ or $\theta$, implying S2 is stabilized by the Zeeman energy. The melting temperatures of S1 and S2, estimated from the disappearance of the pinning mode, show different behavior vs $\nu$. At the largest $n$ or $\theta$, S2 disappears and the third phase, S1A, replaces S1, also exhibiting a pinning mode. This occurs as the WQW $\nu=1$ IQHE becomes a two-component, Halperin-Laughlin $\pone$ state. We interpret S1A as a WS of the excitations of $\pone$, which has not been previously observed.

We study a bilayer system hosting exotic many-body states of two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs) in close proximity but isolated from one another by a thin barrier. One 2DES has low electron density and forms a Wigner solid (WS) at high magnetic fields. The other has much higher density and, in the same field exhibits fractional quantum Hall states (FQHSs). The WS manifests microwave resonances which are understood as pinning modes, collective oscillations of the WS within the small but finite ubiquitous disorder. Our measurements reveal a striking evolution of the pinning mode frequencies of the WS layer with the formation of the FQHSs in the nearby layer, evincing a strong coupling between the WS pinning modes and the state of the 2DES in the adjacent layer, mediated by screening.

One of the most fascinating ground states of an interacting electron system is the so-called Wigner crystal where the electrons, in order to minimize their repulsive Coulomb energy, form an ordered array. Here we report measurements of the critical filling factor ($\nu_{C}$) below which a magnetic-field-induced, quantum Wigner crystal forms in a dilute, two-dimensional electron layer when a second, high-density electron layer is present in close proximity. The data reveal that the Wigner crystal forms at a significantly smaller $\nu_{C}$ compared to the $\nu_{C}$ ($\simeq 0.20$) in single-layer two-dimensional electron systems. The measured $\nu_{C}$ exhibits a strong dependence on the interlayer distance, reflecting the interaction and screening from the adjacent, high-density layer., Comment: The formal version is published on Phys. Rev. B (2018)

The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) states at half integer Landau fillings ($\nu$) have long been of great interest, since they have correlations that differ from those of the fundamental Laughlin states found at odd denominators. At $\nu=1/2$ the FQHE has been observed in wide or double quantum wells, and is ascribed to the two-component Halperin-Laughlin $\Psi_{331}$ state. $\Psi_{331}$ excitations carry charge $\pm e/4$, like the carriers of $\nu=5/2$ states which are of interest in quantum computation. Further, such an excitation (quasiparticle or -hole) of $\Psi_{331}$ has unequal, opposite charge in the top and bottom layers, and hence an up or down dipole moment. Here we report evidence for a Wigner solid (WS) of such dipolar quasiholes from a quantitative study of the microwave spectra of a wide quantum well (WQW) at $\nu$ close to 1/2.

We report measurements of microwave spectra of two-dimensional electron systems hosted in dilute Al alloy, Al$_x$Ga$_{1-x}$As, for a range of Landau level fillings, $\nu$, around 1. For $\nu>0.8$ or $\nu<1.2$, the samples exhibit a microwave resonance whose frequency decreases as $\nu$ moves away from 1. A resonance with this behavior is the signature of solids of quasiparticles or -holes in the partially occupied Landau level, which was previously seen in ultralow disorder samples. For $\nu<0.8$ down to as low as $\nu=0.54$, a resonance in the spectra is still present in the Al alloy-disordered samples, though it is partially or completely suppressed at $\nu=3/5$ and $1/2$, and is strongly damped over much of this $\nu$ range. The resonance also shows a striking enhancement in peak frequency for $\nu$ just below 3/4. We discuss possible explanations of the resonance behavior for $\nu<0.8$ in terms of the composite fermion picture.

At the low Landau filling factor $(\nu)$ termination of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) series, two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs) exhibit an insulating phase that is understood as a form of pinned Wigner solid. Here we use microwave spectroscopy to probe the transition to the insulator for a wide quantum well (WQW) sample that can support single-layer or bilayer states depending on its overall carrier density, $n$. We find the insulator exhibits a resonance, which is characteristic of a bilayer solid. The resonance also reveals a pair of transitions within the solid, which are not accessible to dc transport measurements. As $n$ is biased deeper into the bilayer solid regime, the resonance grows in specific intensity, and the transitions within the insulator disappear. These behaviors are suggestive of a picture of the insulating phase as an emulsion of liquid and solid components.

We investigate a two-dimensional electron system (2DES) under microwave illumination at cyclotron resonance subharmonics. The 2DES carries sufficient direct current, $I$, that the differential resistivity oscillates as $I$ is swept. At magnetic fields sufficient to resolve individual Landau levels, we find the number of oscillations within an $I$ range systematically changes with increasing microwave power. Microwave absorption and emission of $N$ photons, where $N$ is controlled by the microwave power, describes our observations in the framework of the displacement mechanism of impurity scattering between Hall-field tilted Landau levels.

For a series of samples with 2D electron systems in dilute Al_x Ga_{1-x}As, with varying x from 0 to 0.8 %, we survey the pinning mode resonances of Wigner solids at the low Landau filling termination of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) series. For all x studied, the pinning modes are present with frequencies, f_pk, that are consistent with collective weak pinning. For x>=0.22% we find f_pk vs B exhibits a rapid increase that is not present for x=0. We find the observed f_pk is much smaller than values calculated with a simple Wigner solid model which neglects the effects of the disorder on the charge distribution of a carrier.

In high magnetic fields ($B$), two dimensional electron systems (2DESs) can form a number of phases in which interelectron repulsion plays the central role, since the kinetic energy is frozen out by Landau quantization. These phases include the well-known liquids of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), as well as solid phases with broken spatial symmetry and crystalline order. Solids can occur at the low Landau filling ($\nu$) termination of the FQHE series, but also within integer quantum Hall effects (IQHEs). Here, we present microwave spectroscopy studies of wide quantum wells (WQWs). The spectra clearly reveal two distinct solid phases, hidden within what in dc transport would be the zero diagonal conductivity of an integer quantum Hall effect state. Explanation of these solids is not possible with the simple picture of a Wigner solid (WS) of ordinary (quasi) electrons or holes.

We investigate the low-temperature magneto-transport properties of monolayer epitaxial graphene films formed on the Si-face of semi-insulating 4H-SiC substrates by a high temperature sublimation process. A high-k top-gate on the epitaxial graphene is realized by inserting a fully oxidized nanometer thin aluminum film as a seeding layer, followed by an atomic layer deposition process. At low temperatures, the devices demonstrate a strong field effect by the top gate with an on/off ratio of ~7 and an electron mobility up to ~3250 cm^2/Vs. After the observation of the half-integer quantum Hall effect for monolayer epitaxial graphene films, detailed magneto-transport measurements have been carried out including varying densities, temperatures, magnetic fields and currents. We study the width of the distinguishable quantum-Hall plateau to plateau transition (Landau level index n=0 to n=1) as temperature (T) and current are varied. For both gate voltage and magnetic field sweeps and T>10 K the transition width goes as T^{-\kappa} with exponent \kappa ~0.42. This universal scaling exponent agrees well with those found in III-V heterojunctions with short range alloy disorders and in exfoliated graphene., Comment: accepted by Journal of Applied Physics

We report a highly unusual temperature dependence in the magnetoresistance of a weakly interacting high mobility 2D electron gas (2DEG) under a parallel magnetic field and when the current is perpendicular to the field. While the linear temperature dependence below 10 K and the exponential temperature dependence above 40 K agree with existing theory of electron-phonon scattering, a field induced resistivity saturation behaviour characterized by an almost complete suppression of the temperature dependence is observed from approximately 20 to 40 K, which is in sharp contrast to the phenomenology observed when the current is parallel to the field. Possible origins of this intriguing intermediate temperature phenomenon are discussed., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

We report studies of pinning mode resonances of magnetic field induced bilayer Wigner crystals of bilayer hole samples with negligible interlayer tunneling and different interlayer separations d, in states with varying layer densities, including unequal layer densities. With unequal layer densities, samples with large d relative to the in-plane carrier-carrier spacing a, two pinning resonances are present, one for each layer. For small d/a samples, a single resonance is observed even with significant density imbalance. These samples, at balance, were shown to exhibit an enhanced pinning mode frequency [Zhihai Wang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 136804 (2007)], which was ascribed to a one-component, pseudospin ferromagnetic Wigner solid. The evolution of the resonance frequency and line width indicates the quantum interlayer coherence survives at moderate density imbalance, but disappears when imbalance is sufficiently large.

We have measured the microwave conductance of mechanically exfoliated graphene at frequencies up to 8.5 GHz. The conductance at 4.2 K exhibits quantum oscillations, and is independent of the frequency.

We report the observation of a resonance in the microwave spectra of the real diagonal conductivities of a two-dimensional electron system within a range of ~ +- .0.015 $ from filling factor $\nu=1/3$. The resonance is remarkably similar to resonances previously observed near integer $\nu$, and is interpreted as the collective pinning mode of a disorder-pinned Wigner solid phase of $e/3$-charged carriers ., Comment: version with edits for clarity, improved Figure 3 and added reference

We report the observation of a new phenomenon of colossal magnetoresistance in a 40 nm wide GaAs quantum well in the presence of an external magnetic field applied parallel to the high-mobility 2D electron layer. In a strong magnetic field, the magnetoresistance is observed to increase by a factor of ~300 from 0 to 45T without the system undergoing any metal-insulator transition. We discuss how this colossal magnetoresistance effect cannot be attributed to the spin degree-of-freedom or localization physics, but most likely emanates from strong magneto-orbital coupling between the two-dimensional electron gas and the magnetic field. Our observation is consistent with a field-induced 2D-to-3D transition in the confined electronic system.

Epitaxial graphene films were formed on the Si-face of semi-insulating 4H-SiC substrates by a high temperature sublimation process. A high-k gate stack on epitaxial graphene is realized by inserting a fully oxidized nanometer thin aluminum film as a seeding layer followed by an atomic-layer deposition process. The electrical properties of epitaxial graphene films are sustained after gate stack formation without significant degradation. At low temperatures, the quantum-Hall effect in Hall resistance is observed along with pronounced Shubnikov-de Hass oscillations in diagonal magneto-resistance of gated epitaxial graphene on SiC (0001)., Comment: 2 new references added

When a strong magnetic field is applied perpendicularly (along z) to a sheet confining electrons to two dimensions (x-y), highly correlated states emerge as a result of the interplay between electron-electron interactions, confinement and disorder. These so-called fractional quantum Hall (FQH) liquids form a series of states which ultimately give way to a periodic electron solid that crystallizes at high magnetic fields. This quantum phase of electrons has been identified previously as a disorder-pinned two-dimensional Wigner crystal with broken translational symmetry in the x-y plane. Here, we report our discovery of a new insulating quantum phase of electrons when a very high magnetic field, up to 45T, is applied in a geometry parallel (y-direction) to the two-dimensional electron sheet. Our data point towards this new quantum phase being an electron solid in a "quasi-3D" configuration induced by orbital coupling with the parallel field.

We study the anisotropic pinning-mode resonances in the rf conductivity spectra of the stripe phase of 2D electron systems (2DES) around Landau level filling 9/2, in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field, B_ip. The polarization along which the resonance is observed switches as B_ip is applied, consistent with the reorientation of the stripes. The resonance frequency, a measure of the pinning interaction between the 2DES and disorder, increases with B_ip. The magnitude of this increase indicates that disorder interaction is playing an important role in determining the stripe orientation.

Epitaxial graphene films have been formed on the C-face of semi-insulating 4H-SiC substrates by a high temperature sublimation process. Nano-scale square antidot arrays have been fabricated on these graphene films. At low temperatures, magneto-conductance in these films exhibits pronounced Aharonov-Bohm oscillations with the period corresponding to magnetic flux quanta added to the area of a single antidot. At low fields, weak localization is observed and its visibility is enhanced by intravalley scattering on antidot edges. At high fields, we observe two distinctive minima in magnetoconductance which can be attributed to commensurability oscillations between classical cyclotron orbits and antidot array. All mesoscopic features, surviving up to 70 K, reveal the unique electronic properties of graphene., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

We study the radio-frequency diagonal conductivities of the anisotropic stripe phases of higher Landau levels near half integer fillings. In the hard direction, in which larger dc resistivity occurs, the spectrum exhibits a striking resonance, while in the orthogonal, easy direction, no resonance is discernable. The resonance is interpreted as a pinning mode of the stripe phase.

We report studies of pinning mode resonances in the low total Landau filling (\nu) Wigner solid of a series of bilayer hole samples with negligible interlayer tunneling, and with varying interlayer separation d. Comparison of states with equal layer densities (p,p) to single layer states (p,0) produced {in situ} by biasing, indicates that there is interlayer quantum correlation in the solid at small d. Also, the resonance frequency at small d is decreased just near \nu=1/2 and 2/3, indicating the importance in the solid of correlations related to those in the fractional quantum Hall effects.

The melting temperature ($T_m$) of a solid is generally determined by the pressure applied to it, or indirectly by its density ($n$) through the equation of state. This remains true even for helium solids\cite{wilk:67}, where quantum effects often lead to unusual properties\cite{ekim:04}. In this letter we present experimental evidence to show that for a two dimensional (2D) solid formed by electrons in a semiconductor sample under a strong perpendicular magnetic field\cite{shay:97} ($B$), the $T_m$ is not controlled by $n$, but effectively by the \textit{quantum correlation} between the electrons through the Landau level filling factor $\nu$=$nh/eB$. Such melting behavior, different from that of all other known solids (including a classical 2D electron solid at zero magnetic field\cite{grim:79}), attests to the quantum nature of the magnetic field induced electron solid. Moreover, we found the $T_m$ to increase with the strength of the sample-dependent disorder that pins the electron solid., Comment: Some typos corrected and 2 references added. Final version with minor editoriol revisions published in Nature Physics

We present measurements of the real diagonal microwave conductivity of the reentrant insulating quantum Hall phases in the first excited Landau level at temperatures below 50 mK. A resonance is detected around filling factor $\nu=2.58$ and weaker frequency dependence is seen at $\nu=2.42$ and 2.28. These measurements are consistent with the formation of a bubble phase crystal centered around these $\nu$ at very low temperatures.

We have measured high frequency magnetotransport of a high quality two-dimensional electron system (2DES) near the reentrant insulating phase (RIP) at Landau fillings ($\nu$) between 1/5 and 2/9. The magneto\textit{conductivity} in the RIP has resonant behavior around 150 MHz, showing a \textit{peak} at $\nu$$\sim$0.21. Our data support the interpretation of the RIP as due to some pinned electron solid. We have also investigated a narrowly confined 2DES recently found to have a RIP at 1/3$<$$\nu$$<$1/2 and we have revealed features, not seen in DC transport, that suggest some intriguing interplay between the 1/3 FQHE and RIP., Comment: 4 pages and 1 figure (amsart format), 16th International Conference on High Magnetic Fields in Semiconductor Physics (SemiMag16), August 2-6, 2004, Tallahassee

We have performed RF spectroscopy on very high quality two dimensional electron systems in the high magnetic field insulating phase, usually associated with a Wigner solid (WS) pinned by disorder. We have found two different resonances in the frequency dependent real diagonal conductivity spectrum and we interpret them as coming from \textit{two} different pinned solid phases (labeled as "WS-A" and "WS-B"). The resonance of WS-A is observable for Landau level filling $\nu$$<$2/9 (but absent around the $\nu$=1/5 fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE)); it then \textit{crosses over} for $\nu$$<$0.18 to the different WS-B resonance which dominates the spectrum at $\nu$$<$0.125. Moreover, WS-A resonance is found to show dispersion with respect to the size of transmission line, indicating that WS-A has a large correlation length (exceeding $\sim$100 $\mu$m); in contrast no such behavior is found for WS-B. We suggest that quantum correlations such as those responsible for FQHE may play an important role in giving rise to such different solids., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

We present the results of an experimental study of the current-voltage characteristics in strong magnetic field ($B$) of disordered, superconducting, thin-films of amorphous Indium-Oxide. As the $B$ strength is increased superconductivity degrades, until a critical field ($B_c$) where the system is forced into an insulating state. We show that the differential conductance measured in the insulating phase vanishes abruptly below a well-defined temperature, resulting in a clear threshold for conduction. Our results indicate that a new collective state emerges in two-dimensional superconductors at high $B$., Comment: TeX file and 4 figures; final accepted version

Magnetotransport measurements were performed in a ultra-high mobility GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well of density $\sim 3.0 \times 10^{11}$ $cm^{-2}$. The temperature dependence of the magnetoresistance $R_{xx}$ was studied in detail in the vicinity of $\nu={9/2}$. In particular, we discovered new minima in $R_{xx}$ at filling factor $\nu\simeq 4{1/5}$ and $4{4/5}$, but only at intermediate temperatures $80\lesssim T\lesssim 120$ mK. We interpret these as evidence for a fractional quantum Hall liquid forming in the N=2 Landau level and competing with bubble and Wigner crystal phases favored at lower temperatures. Our data suggest that a magnetically driven insulator-insulator quantum phase transition occurs between the bubble and Wigner crystal phases at T=0., Comment: Phys. Rev. Lett.93 266804 (2004)

For filling factors $\nu$ in the range between 4.16 and 4.28, we simultaneously detect {\it two} resonances in the real diagonal microwave conductivity of a two--dimensional electron system (2DES) at low temperature $T \approx 35$ mK. We attribute the resonances to Wigner crystal and Bubble phases of the 2DES in higher Landau Levels. For $\nu$ below and above this range, only single resonances are observed. The coexistence of both phases is taken as evidence of a first order phase transition. We estimate the transition point as $\nu=4.22$., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs. Revtex4

We present the results of an experimental study of superconducting, disordered, thin-films of amorphous Indium Oxide. These films can be driven from the superconducting phase to a reentrant insulating state by the application of a perpendicular magnetic field ($B$). We find that the high-$B$ insulator exhibits activated transport with a characteristic temperature, $T_I$. $T_I$ has a maximum value ($T_{I}^p$) that is close to the superconducting transition temperature ($T_c$) at $B$ = 0, suggesting a possible relation between the conduction mechanisms in the superconducting and insulating phases. $T_{I}^p$ and $T_c$ display opposite dependences on the disorder strength., Comment: Tex file and 5 figures; Revised version; To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. (2004)

We measure a resonance in the frequency dependence of the real diagonal conductivity, Re[$\sigma_{xx}$], near integer filling factor, $\nu=3$. This resonance depends strongly on $\nu$, with peak frequency $f_{pk} \approx 1.7$ GHz at $\nu=3.04$ or 2.92 close to integer $\nu$, but $f_{pk} \approx$ 600 MHz at $\nu=3.19$ or 2.82, the extremes of where the resonance is visible. The dependence of $f_{pk}$ upon $n^*$, the density of electrons in the partially filled level, is discussed and compared with similar measurments by Chen {\it et al.}\cite{yong} about $\nu=1$ and 2. We interpret the resonance as due to a pinned Wigner crystal phase with density $n^*$ about the $\nu=3$ state., Comment: for proceedings of EP2DS-15 (Nara) to appear in Physica E

We have observed a resonance in the real part of the finite frequency diagonal conductivity using microwave absorption measurements in high quality 2D electron systems near {\em integer fillings}. The resonance exists in some neighborhood of filling factor around corresponding integers and is qualitatively similar to previously observed resonance of weakly pinned Wigner crystal in high $B$ and very small filling factor regime. Data measured around both $\nu=1$ and $\nu=2$ are presented. We interpret the resonance as the signature of Wigner crystal state around integer Landau levels., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures