Evidence for a fractionally quantized Hall state with anisotropic longitudinal transport

Abstract

At high magnetic fields, where the Fermi level lies in the N=0 lowest Landau level (LL), a clean two-dimensional electron system (2DES) shows numerous incompressible liquid phases which exhibit the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE; ref. 1). These liquid phases do not break rotational symmetry, exhibiting resistivities which are isotropic in the plane. In contrast, at lower fields, when the Fermi level lies in the N ≥ 2 third and several higher LLs, the 2DES exhibits a distinctly different class of collective states. In particular, near half-filling of these high LLs the 2DES exhibits a strongly anisotropic longitudinal resistance at low temperatures. These 'stripe' phases, which do not exhibit the quantized Hall effect, resemble nematic liquid crystals, possessing broken rotational symmetry and orientational order. Here we report a surprising new observation: an electronic configuration in the N=1 LL, the resistivity tensor of which simultaneously exhibits a robust fractionally quantized Hall plateau and a strongly anisotropic longitudinal resistance resembling that of the stripe phases.

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