MAGNETIC-FIELD DEPENDENCE OF QUANTIZED HALL-EFFECT BREAKDOWN VOLTAGES

When large currents are passed through a high-quality quantized Hall resistance device, the voltage drop along the device is observed to assume discrete, quantized states when plotted against the magnetic field. These quantized voltage states are interpreted as occurring when electrons are excited to higher Landau levels and then return to the original Landau level. The quantization is found to be a function of magnetic field, and consequently can be more difficult to verify and determine than previously suspected.