Electron pinball and commensurate orbits in a periodic array of scatterers

Abstract

We have introduced an artificial array of scatterers into a macroscopic two-dimensional conductor nearly devoid of intrinsic defects. This generates pronounced structure in the magnetoresistance, anomalous low-field Hall plateaus, and a quenching of the Hall effect about B = 0. Our calculations show that the predominant features in the data arise from commensurate classical orbits impaled upon small groups of the imposed scatterers.