Anisotropic transport in a unidirectional lateral superlattice around half filling of the second Landau level
Akira Endo and Yasuhiro Iye
Phys. Rev. B 66 075333 (2002)
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We have observed marked transport anisotropy in short period (a=92 nm) unidirectional lateral superlattices around filling factors nu=5/2 and 7/2: magnetoresistance shows a sharp peak for current along the modulation grating while a dip appears for current across the grating. By altering the ratio a/l (with l=sqrt{hbar/eB} the magnetic length) via changing the electron density ne, it is shown that the n=5/2 anisotropic features appear in the range 6.6 alt a/l alt 7.2 varying their intensities, becoming most conspicuous at a/l simeq 6.7. The peak/dip broadens with temperature roughly preserving its height and depth up to 250 mK. Tilt experiments reveal that the structures are slightly enhanced by an in-plane magnetic field B// perpendicular to the
grating but are almost completely destroyed by B// parallel to the grating. The observations suggest the stabilization of a unidirectional charge-density-wave or stripe phase by weak external periodic modulation at the second Landau level.