Nobel Work Done at Francis Bitter Lab

November 2003, page 11

In their article "A Topological Look at the Quantum Hall Effect" (Physics Today, August 2003, page 38), Joseph E. Avron, Daniel Osadchy, and Ruedi Seiler describe Klaus von Klitzing's discovery of the integer quantum Hall effect. That work led to his winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1985. The authors correctly identify the Grenoble High Magnetic Field Laboratory in France as the facility at which the initial discovery was made. They subsequently write about how Horst Stormer, Daniel Tsui, and "coworkers at AT&T Bell Laboratories" found evidence of a fractional quantum Hall effect. Stormer and Tsui, along with the theorist Robert Laughlin, received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics for that work. However, omitted from the discussion was the fact that the experiments leading to the prize-winning results were performed at what was then the MIT Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory. A plaque acknowledging that accomplishment hangs in the lobby of the laboratory.

Lawrence G. Rubin

(lrubin@mit.edu)

MIT Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory

Cambridge, Massachusetts

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