Experimental realization of Laughlin quasiparticle interferometers

Abstract

Laughlin quasiparticles are the elementary excitations of a highly-correlated fractional quantum Hall electron fluid. They have fractional charge and obey fractional statistics. The quasiparticles can propagate quantum-coherently in chiral edge channels, and constructively or destructively interfere. Unlike electrons, the interference condition for Laughlin quasiparticles has a non-vanishing statistical contribution that can be observed experimentally. Two kinds of interferometer devices have been realized. In the primary-filling interferometer, the entire device has filling 1/3, and the e/3 edge channel quasiparticles encircle identical e/3 island quasiparticles. Here the flux period is h/e, same as for electrons, but the back-gate charge period is e/3. In the second kind of interferometer, a lower density edge channel at filling 1/3 forms around a higher density island at filling 2/5, so that e/3 edge quasiparticles encircle e/5 island quasiparticles. Here we observe superperiodic oscillations with 5h/e flux and 2e charge periods, both corresponding to excitation of ten island quasiparticles. These periods can be understood as imposed by the anyonic braiding statistics of Laughlin quasiparticles.