We study a current shot noise in a macroscopic insulator based on a two-dimensional electron system in GaAs in a variable range hopping (VRH) regime. At low temperature and in a sufficiently depleted sample a shot noise close to a full Poissonian val
ue is measured. This suggests an observation of a finite-size effect in shot noise in the VRH conduction and demonstrates a possibility of accurate quasiparticle charge measurements in the insulating regime.
We study a shot noise of a wide channel gated high-frequency transistor at temperature of 4.2K near pinch-off. In this regime, a transition from the metallic to the insulating state is expected to occur, accompanied by the increase of the partition n
oise. The dependence of the noise spectral density on current is found to be slightly nonlinear. At low currents, the differential Fano factor is enhanced compared to the universal value 1/3 for metallic diffusive conductors. We explain this result by the effect of thermal fluctuations in a nonlinear regime near pinch-off, without calling for the enhanced partition noise.
We directly measure the chemical potential jump in the low-temperature limit when the filling factor traverses the nu = 1/3 and nu = 2/5 fractional gaps in two-dimensional (2D) electron system in GaAs/AlGaAs single heterojunctions. In high magnetic f
ields B, both gaps are linear functions of B with slopes proportional to the inverse fraction denominator, 1/q. The fractional gaps close partially when the Fermi level lies outside. An empirical analysis indicates that the chemical potential jump for an IDEAL 2D electron system, in the highest accessible magnetic fields, is proportional to q^{-1}B^{1/2}.
