Temperature dependence of the breakdown of the quantum Hall effect studied by induced currents

Abstract

We have developed a model of the high-current breakdown of the integer quantum Hall effect, as measured in contactless experiments using a highly-sensitive torsion balance magnetometer. The model predicts that, for empirically ``low-mobility'' samples $(\ensuremath{\mu}<75\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{m}}^{2}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{V}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1})$, the critical current for breakdown should decrease with, and have a linear dependence on, temperature. This prediction is verified experimentally with the addition of a low-temperature saturation of the critical current at a temperature that depends on both sample number density and filling factor. It is shown that this saturation is consistent with quasielastic inter-Landau-level scattering when the maximum electric field in the sample reaches a large enough value. In addition we show how this model can be extended to give qualitative agreement with experiments on high-mobility samples.