Composite Fermions in Modulated Structures: Transport and Surface Acoustic Waves

Felix von Oppen, Ady Stern, Bertrand I. Halperin

Published 1997-12-03, updated 1998-05-13Version 2

Motivated by a recent experiment of Willett et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 4478 (1997)], we employ semiclassical composite-fermion theory to study the effect of a periodic density modulation on a quantum Hall system near Landau level filling factor nu=1/2. We show that even a weak density modulation leads to dramatic changes in surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) propagation, and propose an explanation for several key features of the experimental observations. We predict that properly arranged dc transport measurements would show a structure similar to that seen in SAW measurements.