Abstract
Measurement of the ground-state spin polarization of quantum systems offers great potential for the discovery and characterization of correlated electronic states. However, spin polarization measurements have mainly involved optical1,2,3 and NMR4,5 techniques that perturb the delicate ground states and, for quantum Hall systems, have provided conflicting results1,4,6. Here we present spin-resolved pulsed tunnelling (SRPT) that precisely determines the phase diagram of the ground-state spin polarization as a function of magnetic field and Landau level (LL) filling factor (ν) with negligible perturbation to the system. Our phase diagram shows a variety of polarized, unpolarized and topological spin states in the lowest (N = 0) LL, which can largely be described by a weakly interacting composite fermion (CF) model7. However, the phase diagram shows unexpected behaviour in the N = 1 LL. We observe fully polarized ν = 5/2 and 8/3 states but a partially depolarized ν = 7/3 state. This behaviour deviates from the conventional theoretical picture7,8 of weakly interacting fractional quasiparticles, but instead suggests unusual electronic correlations and the possibility of new non-Abelian phases9,10,11. The results establish SRPT as a powerful technique for investigating correlated electron phenomena.
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Source data are provided with this paper. All other data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank J. K. Jain and A. H. MacDonald for discussions. This work is supported by the Basic Energy Sciences Program of the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy through contract no. FG02-08ER46514 and by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grant GBMF2931. The work at Princeton University was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through the EPiQS (Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems) initiative grant GBMF4420 and by the National Science Foundation MRSEC (Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers) grant DMR-1420541.
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H.M.Y. and R.C.A. conceived the experiments. L.P., K.W.B. and K.W. contributed in the epitaxial growth of the sample. H.M.Y. carried out the measurements. H.M.Y. and R.C.A. performed data analysis and prepared the manuscript. R.C.A. supervised the project.
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Supplementary Information
Supplementary Figs. 1–10, Supplementary Discussion
Source data
Source Data Fig. 1
Raw tunnelling current spectra.
Source Data Fig. 2
Spin polarization 1D plot.
Source Data Fig. 3
Spin polarization 2D plot.
Source Data Fig. 4
Spin polarization 2D plot.
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Yoo, H.M., Baldwin, K.W., West, K. et al. Spin phase diagram of the interacting quantum Hall liquid. Nat. Phys. 16, 1022–1027 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0946-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0946-1
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