The quantum Hall effect as a standard to define the laboratory unit of resistance

A measurement system has been developed to determine the resistance of integer quantum Hall plateaux relative to a room-temperature reference resistor network of nominally the same values. Silicon MOSFET and GaAs-AlGaAs samples have been successfully fabricated and measured. The results confirm that the integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) may be used to monitor a group of standard resistors comprising the laboratory unit of resistance. They demonstrate the feasibility of defining the laboratory unit of resistance by adopting a value for the quantum Hall resistance h/e².