# Semicircle: An exact relation in the Integer and Fractional Quantum Hall Effect

\[

## Abstract

We present experimental results on the quantized Hall insulator in two dimensions. This insulator, with vanishing conductivities, is characterized by the quantization (within experimental accuracy) of the Hall resistance in units of the quantum unit of resistance, $`h/e^2`$. The measurements were performed in a two dimensional hole system, confined in a Ge/SiGe quantum well, when the magnetic field is increased above the $`\nu =1`$ quantum Hall state. This quantization leads to a nearly perfect semi-circle relation for the diagonal and Hall conductivities. Similar results are obtained with a higher mobility n-type modulation doped GaAs/AlGaAs sample, when the magnetic field is increased above the $`\nu =1/3`$ fractional quantum Hall state.

\]

In the extreme quantum limit, when the magnetic field (B) exceeds a critical field $`B_c`$, the quantum Hall series is terminated by an insulator. This insulator is characterized by a diverging diagonal resistivity, $`\rho _{xx}`$, as the temperature (T) vanishes. In general this insulating behavior occurs when the lowest resolved energy level exceeds the Fermi energy. For samples exhibiting only integer plateaus the transition occurs typically beyond $`\nu =1`$. For higher mobility samples this transition can occur beyond the $`\nu =1/3`$ state  or the $`\nu =1/5`$ state. In addition to these primary fractions transitions to insulating behavior have been observed originating from many other fractions. In this article we will only concentrate on the transitions from the states $`\nu =1`$ to insulator and $`\nu =1/3`$ to insulator. For both these transitions it has been shown previously that the transition point can be obtained from the B-field, $`B=B_c`$, where a T-independent $`\rho _{xx}`$ is observed. Our main focus here is the determination of $`\rho _{xy}`$ and the inter-relation between the diagonal, $`\sigma _{xx}`$, and Hall, $`\sigma _{xy}`$ conductivities around the transitions, with emphasis on extending previous works to deep into the insulating phase.

In order to measure $`\rho _{xy}`$ we average over both B-field directions, which minimizes the contribution of the diverging $`\rho _{xx}`$. In fig. 1 we have plotted $`\rho _{xx}`$ and $`\rho _{xy}`$ as a function of B. The transition point $`B_c=6.06`$ T is easily identified with the crossing of the $`\rho _{xx}`$ traces obtained at different T ’s. The remarkable feature in this figure is the accuracy of the quantization beyond $`B_c`$, i.e., deep inside the insulating phase. The deviation from its quantized value between 6 and 8 T (inside the insulator) is less than 0.5% for $`T`$=1.8 K. Over the entire T range (below 2 K) $`\rho _{xy}`$ deviates by less than 2% from $`h/e^2`$, while $`\rho _{xx}`$ is highly insulating.

Following Dykhne and Ruzin’s  calculation for a two phase model, where the transition region is described by a semi-circle relation between $`\sigma _{xx}`$ and $`\sigma _{xy}`$, we plotted in the inset of fig. 1 $`\sigma _{xx}`$ as a function of $`\sigma _{xy}`$. In their calculation $`\sigma _{xx}^2+(\sigma _{xy}\sigma _0/2)^2=(\sigma _0/2)^2`$, where $`\sigma _0=e^2/h`$ for the $`\nu =1`$ to insulator transition and $`\sigma _0=e^2/3h`$ for the $`\nu =1/3`$ to insulator transition. Our experimental plot is close to a perfect semi-circle centered around $`\sigma _{xy}=e^2/2h`$ with radius $`e^2/2h`$, independent of T. These results were obtained in a two-dimensional hole gas confined in a Ge/SiGe quantum well, described in more details in ref. . More details on the T and low B-field dependences can be found in ref. .

We repeated these measurements with an n-type modulation doped GaAs/AlGaAs sample, which exhibits a transition from the $`\nu =1/3`$ quantum Hall state to insulator. We obtain similar results for this system, as demonstrated in fig. 2, but with a semi-circle centered at 0.345 $`e^2/2h`$, instead of 0.333 $`e^2/2h`$ as predicted in ref. . By increasing T (corresponding to the dotted lines) deviations from the semi-circle are becoming significant. In the inset we have plotted the corresponding $`\rho _{xx}`$ and $`\rho _{xy}`$ traces. Here again $`\rho _{xy}`$ remains within 6 % of its quantized value $`3h/e^2`$, for the lowest measured T (0.3 K). For higher T ’s (dotted lines), the deviations are larger.

The quantization of $`\rho _{xy}`$ is intimately related to the existence of the semi-circle. Indeed, when obtaining conductivities from resistivities by matrix inversion, where $`\rho _{xy}=h/\nu e^2`$, we immediately obtain $`\sigma _{xx}^2+(\sigma _{xy}\nu e^2/2h)^2=(\nu e^2/2h)^2`$, independently of $`\rho _{xx}`$.

There has been several theoretical attempts to estimate $`\rho _{xy}`$ in the insulating phase. First Viehweger and Efetov  calculated the reactive part of $`\rho _{xy}`$ and obtained $`\rho _{xy}B`$. When calculating the diffusive part of $`\rho _{xy}`$ a finite $`\rho _{xy}`$ was also obtained . More recently Shimshoni and Auerbach , inspired by a recent experimental work on duality , used a semi-classical network model and obtained a quantized $`\rho _{xy}`$ in the insulating phase. The origin of the quantum decoherence in their model is, however, not clear. In a purely quantum mechanical numerical calculation in the lowest Landau level, i.e., for the $`\nu =1`$ case, a semi-circle and a quantized $`\rho _{xy}`$ was obtained very recently.

An important point is the robustness of the quantization on different parameters. We therefore made measurements with different T ’s, currents (I), contacts, density and samples. The results are summarized in the table. The deviation from the quantized value is obtained from the data for B-fields as deep as we could reliably measure inside the insulating phase.

| Properties for $`B>B_c`$ (X335) | $`\rho _{xy}`$ \[$`h/e^2`$\] |
| --- | --- |
| T (40 mK - 2 K) | 1 $`\pm `$ 2% |
| I (0.1 nA - 1 $`\mu `$A) | 1 $`\pm `$ 5% |
| Density (0.75-1.5) $`\times 10^{11}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup> | 1 $`\pm `$ 2% |
| Exchanging I-V contacts | 1 $`\pm `$ 5% |
| Different sample (X334) | 1 $`\pm `$ 4% |
| FQHE $`\nu =1/3`$ (M124) | 3 $`\pm `$ 6% |

Summarizing, we have experimentally analyzed the nature of a quantized Hall insulator formed when the B-field is increased above the $`\nu =1`$ (or $`\nu =1/3`$) to insulator transition, resulting in $`\rho _{xy}=e^2/h\pm 2`$ % (or $`\rho _{xy}=3e^2/h\pm 6\text{ }\%`$). This verifies the semi-circle relation. The experiments presented covered a certain range of parameters, in particular in temperature, current, density and disorder. Different behaviors outside of the considered range are however possible and would be interesting to investigate in future work.

We thank A. Auerbach and L.P. Pryadko for discussions and especially S.L. Sondhi and E. Shimshoni for encouraging us to look at the behavior of $`\rho _{xy}`$ inside the insulator. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and MH was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.