Abstract
The observation of vanishing electrical resistance in condensed matter has led to the discovery of new phenomena such as, for example, superconductivity, where a zero-resistance state can be detected in a metal below a transition temperature Tc (ref. 1). More recently, quantum Hall effects were discovered from investigations of zero-resistance states at low temperatures and high magnetic fields in two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs)2,3,4. In quantum Hall systems and superconductors, zero-resistance states often coincide with the appearance of a gap in the energy spectrum1,2,4. Here we report the observation of zero-resistance states and energy gaps in a surprising setting5: ultrahigh-mobility GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures that contain a 2DES exhibit vanishing diagonal resistance without Hall resistance quantization at low temperatures and low magnetic fields when the specimen is subjected to electromagnetic wave excitation. Zero-resistance-states occur about magnetic fields B = 4/5 Bf and B = 4/9 Bf, where Bf = 2πfm*/e,m* is the electron mass, e is the electron charge, and f is the electromagnetic-wave frequency. Activated transport measurements on the resistance minima also indicate an energy gap at the Fermi level6. The results suggest an unexpected radiation-induced, electronic-state-transition in the GaAs/AlGaAs 2DES.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge discussions with E. Demler, H. Fertig, R. Gerhardts, W. Hanke, C. Kallin, M. Kruger, L. Manchanda, S. Mikhailov, A. Stern and M. Tinkham. This work has been supported by the ARO, BMBF, CSR at SRC, DFG and GIF.
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Mani, R., Smet, J., von Klitzing, K. et al. Zero-resistance states induced by electromagnetic-wave excitation in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures. Nature 420, 646–650 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01277
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01277
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