Edge-state velocity and coherence in a quantum Hall Fabry-Pérot interferometer

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Nov 13;103(20):206806. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.206806. Epub 2009 Nov 13.

Abstract

We investigate nonlinear transport in electronic Fabry-Pérot interferometers in the integer quantum Hall regime. For interferometers sufficiently large that Coulomb blockade effects are absent, a checkerboardlike pattern of conductance oscillations as a function of dc bias and perpendicular magnetic field is observed. Edge-state velocities extracted from the checkerboard data are compared to model calculations and found to be consistent with a crossover from skipping orbits at low fields to E-vector x B-vector drift at high fields. Suppression of visibility as a function of bias and magnetic field is accounted for by including energy- and field-dependent dephasing of edge electrons.