Electron interferometry in the quantum Hall regime: Aharonov-Bohm effect of interacting electrons

Abstract

An apparent $h/fe$ Aharonov-Bohm flux period, where $f$ is an integer, has been reported in coherent quantum Hall devices. Such subperiod is not expected for noninteracting electrons and thus is thought to result from interelectron Coulomb interaction. Here we report experiments in a Fabry-Perot interferometer comprised of two wide constrictions enclosing an electron island. By carefully tuning the constriction front gates, we find a regime where interference oscillations with period $h/2e$ persist throughout the transition between the integer quantum Hall plateaus 2 and 3, including half-filling. In a large quantum Hall sample, a transition between integer plateaus occurs near half-filling, where the bulk of the sample becomes delocalized and thus dissipative bulk current flows between the counterpropagating edges (``backscattering''). In a quantum Hall constriction, where conductance is due to electron tunneling, a transition between forward and backscattering is expected near the half-filling. In our experiment, neither period nor amplitude of the oscillations show a discontinuity at half-filling, indicating that only one interference path exists throughout the transition. We also present experiments and an analysis of the front-gate dependence of the phase of the oscillations. The results point to a single physical mechanism of the observed conductance oscillations: Aharonov-Bohm interference of interacting electrons in quantum Hall regime.