For certain measurements, the Corbino geometry has a distinct advantage over the Hall and van der Pauw geometries, in that it provides a direct probe of the bulk 2DEG without complications due to edge effects. This may be important in enabling detect
ion of the non-Abelian entropy of the 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state via bulk thermodynamic measurements. We report the successful fabrication and measurement of a Corbino-geometry sample in an ultra-high mobility GaAs heterostructure, with a focus on transport in the second and higher Landau levels. In particular, we report activation energy gaps of fractional quantum Hall states, with all edge effects ruled out, and extrapolate the conductivity prefactor from the Arrhenius fits. Our results show that activated transport in the second Landau level remains poorly understood. The development of this Corbino device opens the possibility to study the bulk of the 5/2 state using techniques not possible in other geometries.
Electrostatic gates are of paramount importance for the physics of devices based on high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) since they allow depletion of electrons in selected areas. This field-effect gating enables the fabrication of a wid
e range of devices such as, for example, quantum point contacts (QPC), electron interferometers and quantum dots. To fabricate these gates, processing is usually performed on the 2DEG material, which is in many cases detrimental to its electron mobility. Here we propose an alternative process which does not require any processing of the 2DEG material other than for the ohmic contacts. This approach relies on processing a separate wafer that is then mechanically mounted on the 2DEG material in a flip-chip fashion. This technique proved successful to fabricate quantum point contacts on both GaAs/AlGaAs materials with both moderate and ultra-high electron mobility.
