Avalanche electron bunching in a Corbino disk in the quantum Hall effect breakdown regime

We have measured the current noise in a device with Corbino geometry to investigate the dynamics of electrons in the breakdown regime of the integer quantum Hall effect (QHE). In the breakdown regime, the Fano factor of the current noise exceeds ${10}^{3}$, which indicates the presence of electron bunching. As super-Poissonian current noise is observed only in the breakdown regime, the bunching effect is related to the QHE breakdown. These observations support a QHE breakdown mechanism that involves an electron avalanche.