Breakdown of the quantum hall effect in regularly inhomogeneous 2D electron systems

A breakdown mechanism is discussed for the current-voltage characteristic of the system of integer Hall channels in a 2D sample with a regularly inhomogeneous 2D electron density. It has been shown that the appearance of an external potential V on the “edges” of such strips leads to two alternatives: as V increases, the strip width decreases to zero or increases geometrically but “deteriorates qualitatively.” In both cases with their (different) thresholds, integer strips lose their properties inherent in them in the quantum Hall effect regime. These thresholds are attributed here to the asymmetric breakdown of the quantum Hall effect for the system of integer channels.