Electrostatic control of quantum Hall ferromagnetic transition, a step toward reconfigurable network of helical channels

Abstract

Ferromagnetic transitions between quantum Hall states with different polarization at a fixed filling factor can be studied by varying the ratio of cyclotron and Zeeman energies in tilted magnetic field experiments. However, an ability to locally control such transitions at a fixed magnetic field would open a range of attractive applications, e.g. formation of a reconfigurable network of one-dimensional helical domain walls in a two-dimensional plane. Coupled to a superconductor, such domain walls can support non-Abelian excitation. In this article we report development of heterostructures where quantum Hall ferromagnetic (QHFm) transition can be controlled locally by electrostatic gating. A high mobility two-dimensional electron gas is formed in CdTe quantum wells with engineered placement of paramagnetic Mn impurities. Gate-induced electrostatic field shifts electron wavefunction in the growth direction and changes overlap between electrons in the quantum well and d-shell electrons on Mn, thus controlling the s-d exchange interaction and the field of the QHFm transition. The demonstrated shift of the QHFm transition at a filling factor $\nu =2$ is large enough to allow full control of spin polarization at a fixed magnetic field.

arXiv comment6 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Robust integer and fractional helical modes in the quantum Hall effect
• Momentum-resolved spin splitting in Mn-doped trivial CdTe and topological HgTe semiconductors
• Transport in helical Luttinger liquids in the fractional quantum Hall regime
• Mesoscopic transport in electrostatically-defined spin-full channels in quantum Hall ferromagnets
• Parafermions, induced edge states and domain walls in the fractional quantum Hall effect spin transitions
• Density-controlled quantum Hall ferromagnetic transition in a two-dimensional hole system
• Disorder-generated non-Abelions
• Conductance resonances and crossing of the edge channels in the quantum Hall ferromagnet state of Cd(Mn)Te microstructures