Optical spectroscopy of GaAs in the extreme quantum limit: integer and fractional quantum Hall effect, and onset of the electron solid

Abstract

Our recent optical detection of the integer and fractional quantum Hall effects in GaAs, by intrinsic band-gap photoluminescence at dilution refrigerator temperatures, is reviewed. This work has been extended to the extreme quantum limit where a photoluminescence peak develops close to Landau level filling factor v = 1 5 which correlates both with the onset of threshold behaviour in current-voltage characteristics of the two-dimensional electron system and a resonant radio-frequency absorption; the latter are quantitatively accounted for by a model of crystalline electronic structure broken up into domains. Preliminary mK transport experiments in intense, pulsed magnetic fields are also described, which establish a basis to access the electron solid phase transition in a hitherto unattainable region of the ( B, T) plane.