Magnetocapacitance and Edge States

The spatial distribution of edge states at quantum Hall (QH) plateaus has been studied both experimentally and theoretically. In the classical simple picture, the width of the edge states is expected to be of the order of the cyclotron radius, since the electrons move along the sample edge by a skipping motion as shown in Fig. 3.3.1. In the one-electron quantum mechanical picture, the width of the edge states is also of the order of the magnetic length \( l = \sqrt {\hbar /e{\rm B}} \).