Composite Fermions in Modulated Structures: Transport and Surface Acoustic Waves

Abstract

Motivated by a recent experiment of Willett et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 4478 (1997)], we employ semiclassical composite-fermion theory to study the effect of a periodic density modulation on a quantum Hall system near Landau level filling factor $\ensuremath{\nu}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}1/2$. We show that even a weak density modulation leads to dramatic changes in surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) propagation, and propose an explanation for several key features of the experimental observations. We predict that properly arranged dc transport measurements would show a structure similar to that seen in SAW measurements.