Evidence for skyrmion crystallization from NMR relaxation experiments.
A resistively detected NMR technique was used to probe the two-dimensional electron gas in a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well. The spin-lattice relaxation rate (1/T(1)) was extracted at near complete filling of the first Landau level by electrons. The nuclear spin of (75)As is found to relax much more efficiently with T --> 0 and when a well developed quantum Hall state with R(xx) approximately 0 occurs. The data show a remarkable correlation between the nuclear spin relaxation and localization. This suggests that the magnetic ground state near complete filling of the first Landau level may contain a lattice of topological spin texture, i.e., a Skyrmion crystal.
Gervais
G
G
Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027 USA.
Stormer
H L
HL
Tsui
D C
DC
Kuhns
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PL
Moulton
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WG
Reyes
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AP
Pfeiffer
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LN
Baldwin
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KW
West
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KW