The Quantum Hall Effect and Our New SI Units

Inselhalle

Conference Room 1–3

Moderator: Klaus Blaum
Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Germany

Basic research on the most important device in microelectronic, the silicon field effect transistor, led to the discovery of the quantum Hall effect and the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1985. This discovery triggered a revolution in metrology, leading to the worldwide introduction of an International System of Units based on constants of nature. For example, starting on May 20, 2019, all countries agreed to define the unit of mass, the kilogram, on the basis of a fixed value for the Planck constant h. In the same way, the unit of electrical current, the Ampere, was redefined based on a fixed value for the elementary charge e. The Agora talk will present an overview about the input of the quantum Hall effect in metrology.