Onset of anisotropic transport of two-dimensional electrons in high Landau levels: Possible isotropic-to-nematic liquid-crystal phase transition

Abstract

The recently discovered anisotropy of the longitudinal resistance of two-dimensional electrons near half filling of high Landau levels is found to persist to much higher temperatures T when a large in-plane magnetic field $B_{\Vert }$ is applied. Under these conditions we find that the longitudinal resistivity scales quasilinearly with $B_{\Vert }/T.\mathrm{}$ These observations support the notion that the onset of anisotropy at $B_{\Vert }=0\mathrm{}$ does not reflect the spontaneous development of charge density modulations but may instead signal an isotropic-to-nematic liquid-crystal phase transition.