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Influence of Potential Barriers, Disorder and Dissipation on the Quantum Hall Effect
Author(s) -
Gagel F.,
Maschke K.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1521-3951(199801)205:1<363::aid-pssb363>3.0.co;2-w
Subject(s) - dephasing , quantum hall effect , dissipation , physics , dissipative system , scattering , condensed matter physics , electron , quantum , coupling (piping) , quantum dissipation , quantum mechanics , materials science , metallurgy
We investigate the influence of coherent and incoherent scattering on magnetotransport in the quantum Hall regime. Our studies are based on the Landauer transport theory allowing to treat general sample geometries and distributions of scatterers. Dissipation is implemented by coupling the sample to auxiliary dephasing electron reservoirs. The presented numerical results for elastic scattering due to disorder and potential barriers confirm the importance of edge‐state transport in the QH regime. The stability of the quantum Hall plateaus with respect to short‐range disorder is shown to be strongly affected by the charge‐neutrality condition. The Hall plateaus turn out to be surprisingly robust against dissipation in the commonly used four‐ or six‐terminal configurations. The stabilization of the current distribution in dissipative systems is exploited to describe the QH situation using a finite weakly dissipative quantum wire.