Past exam of the physics of Nanoelectronic Systems course of the University of Cambridge / 2013 / Paper 1 / 1 / b

In Landau gauge for a uniform magnetic field $\mathbf{A}=(-By,0,0)$, the guiding centre is $Y=\hslash k_x/(eB)$. The group velocity isThus the upper edge in the original trajectory diagram carries electrons to the right and the lower edge to the left. Reversing the magnetic field reverses both arrows. Semiclassically these are skipping trajectories; quantum mechanically the guiding centres label propagating quantum Hall edge states. The larger orbital-plus-spin energy crosses the Fermi energy farther toward the interior, because less confinement energy is needed. Opposite spins in one orbital branch are therefore spatially separated.

In a clean bulk with the Fermi energy between Landau levels, there are no extended bulk states at that energy. Occupied bulk cyclotron orbits lie below it; one must not draw them as extra conducting Fermi-level channels. Smooth disorder can instead produce localized bulk contours without adding a direct source-to-drain channel.