Termination of the spin-resolved integer quantum Hall effect

Abstract

We report a magnetotransport study of the termination of the spin-resolved integer quantum Hall effect by controlled disorder in a gated GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. We have found that, for a given N^{th} Landau level, the difference in filling factors of a pair of spin-split resistivity peaks δν_{N}changes rapidly from one to zero near a critical density n_{c}. Scaling analysis shows that δν_{N} collapses onto a single curve independent of N when plotted against the parameter (n-n_{c})/n_{c} for five Landau levels. The effect of increasing the Zeeman energy is also examined by tilting the direction of magnetic field relative to the plane of the two-dimensional electron gas. Our experiment suggests that the termination of the spin-resolved quantum Hall effect is a phase transition.

8 pages (Revtex), 5 ps figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. B15 Rapid Communication, 1997