EQuAL Student Seminar: Marco Valentini

Single anyons and anyon molecules in a quantum Hall dot

Anyons are emergent quasiparticles that arise in two-dimensional topological phases of matter and carry fractional charge and statistics unlike those of ordinary electrons. Although they are central to our understanding of strongly correlated quantum systems and to proposals for topological quantum computation, experiments have generally probed ensembles of interacting anyons rather than isolated quasiparticles. In this talk, I will describe a graphene-based quantum Hall device that enables individual anyons to be trapped and controlled in an electrically tunable nanoscale region. Measurements in the integer quantum Hall regime establish the device as a clean and controllable single-charge system. In fractional quantum Hall states, the observed transport resonances are consistent with the sequential addition of fractionally charged quasiparticles down to the final quasiparticle or quasihole. The experiments also reveal distinct addition patterns for different types of excitations, including signatures consistent with the formation of bound anyon pairs, or anyon molecules. These results establish a new platform for studying the microscopic structure and interactions of individual emergent excitations. More broadly, the ability to isolate, manipulate, and read out single anyons provides an important foundation for future experiments on anyonic statistics and for quantum devices based on topological states of matter.