Possible nematic to smectic phase transition in a two-dimensional electron gas at half-filling

Abstract

Liquid crystalline phases of matter permeate nature and technology, with examples ranging from cell membranes to liquid-crystal displays. Remarkably, electronic liquid crystal phases can exist in two-dimensional electron systems (2DES) at half Landau level filling in the quantum Hall regime. Theory has predicted the existence of a liquid crystal smectic phase that breaks both rotational and translational symmetries. However, previous experiments in 2DES are most consistent with an anisotropic nematic phase breaking only rotational symmetry. Here we report three transport phenomena at half-filling in ultra-low disorder 2DES: a non-monotonic temperature dependence of the sample resistance, dramatic onset of large time-dependent resistance fluctuations, and a sharp feature in the differential resistance suggestive of depinning. These data suggest that a sequence of symmetry-breaking phase transitions occurs as temperature is lowered: first a transition from an isotropic liquid to a nematic phase and finally to a liquid crystal smectic phase.

References in corpus (7)

• Direct observation of competition between superconductivity and charge density wave order in YBa2Cu3Oy
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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Anomalous Nematic States in High Half-Filled Landau Levels
• Resistivity anisotropy of quantum Hall stripe phases
• Hidden Quantum Hall Stripes in Al${}_x$Ga${}_{1-x}$As/Al${}_{0.24}$Ga${}_{0.76}$As Quantum Wells
• Orientation of hole quantum Hall nematic phases in an out-of-plane electric field
• Anomalous nematic-to-stripe phase transition driven by in-plane magnetic fields