Quantum Hall effect breakdown: can the bootstrap heating and inter-Landau-level scattering models be reconciled?

We study the breakdown of the integer quantum Hall effect in a series of n-type GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures in which the current flows through a short and narrow constriction. The critical mean current density is strongly dependent on the constriction width and is View the MathML source for the narrowest View the MathML source constriction, in qualitative agreement with earlier work by Bliek et al. We compare our data with other breakdown measurements and with the bootstrap-electron-heating and inter-Landau-level-scattering models.