Quantum Hall Effect Shows Surprising Even‐Denominator Plateau

Yet another surprise from the quantum Hall effect. Since its first observation in 1980 by Klaus von Klitzing and coworkers, this remarkable quantum behavior of two‐dimensional electron systems at low temperature and high magnetic field has not ceased to challenge theorists with the totally unexpected. The first great surprise was the observation of broad plateaus of constant Hall conductivity at quantized values that agreed with a manifestly simplistic theory to a quite incredible accuracy of a few parts in $108.$ Von Klitzing won the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery.