Graphene, universality of the quantum Hall effect and redefinition of the SI system

Journal article, 2011

The Systeme Internationale d'unites (SI) is about to undergo its biggest change in half a century by redefining the units for mass and current in terms of the fundamental constants h and e, respectively. This change crucially relies on the exactness of the relationships that link these constants to measurable quantities. Here we report the first direct comparison of the integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) in epitaxial graphene with that in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures. We find no difference in the quantized resistance value within the relative standard uncertainty of our measurement of 8.6 x 10(-11), this being the most stringent test of the universality of the QHE in terms of material independence.