Electrical resistance standards and the quantum Hall effect

Thomas J. Witt

Citation: Review of Scientific Instruments 69, 2823 (1998); doi: 10.1063/1.1149062

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 REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS VOLUME 69, NUMBER 8 AUGUST 1998

REVIEW ARTICLE

Electrical resistance standards and the quantum Hall effect

Thomas J. Witta)
Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, Pavillon de Breteuil, F-92312 Sèvres, cedex, France
~Received 25 February 1998; accepted for publication 12 May 1998!
This review of electrical resistance standards begins with a description of classical standard resistors
and their limitations. Methods of comparing resistance are described; these include bridges based on
cryogenic current comparators capable of achieving statistical uncertainties approaching one part in
1010 in the measurement of resistance ratios. Such reproducibility is nearly two orders of magnitude
smaller than the overall uncertainty of the most accurate determinations of the ohm from its SI
definition via the calculable capacitor. The quantum Hall effect can provide an invariable reference
standard of resistance linked to the fundamental physical constants. Many factors, however, limit the
accuracy of practical realizations of quantized Hall resistance standards. Ultimately, the accuracy of
a specific realization must be confirmed by comparison with similar standards; methods for doing
this and the resulting agreement are presented. The ac techniques used in the determinations of the
SI ohm by means of the calculable capacitor are now being applied to accurately link the quantized
Hall resistance to the impedance of standard capacitors and thereby to provide a new reference
standard of capacitance. © 1998 American Institute of Physics. @S0034-6748~98!01108-3#

I. INTRODUCTION relate conventional standard resistors to the QHR is signifi-

The discovery1 in 1980 of the quantum Hall effect
~QHE! has brought about an improvement, by nearly two
orders of magnitude, in the accuracy with which national
metrology institutes ~NMI! throughout the world are able to
maintain and compare standards of electrical resistance. To-
day some 20 NMIs use the quantized Hall resistance ~QHR!
to support resistance metrology and related fields of mea-
surement in which resistive devices are used for scaling and
measuring physical quantities. Some examples are noted in
Sec. II. The possibilities offered by reproducible and stable
QHR reference standards and today’s more refined measure-
ment techniques allow us to examine in greater detail the
characteristics and limitations of standard resistors. These are
presented in Secs. III and IV where special emphasis is
placed on recently developed high-precision cryogenic mea-
surement techniques.
Simple coordination of resistance standards among
NMIs provides the international traceability needed for most
scientific and commercial work. This is presented in Sec. V.
To go farther, and to incorporate resistance standards within
a coherent system of units, such as the Système International
d’Unités ~SI!, requires that equivalence between electrical
and mechanical energy be established. For this reason the SI
unit of resistance, the ohm, is defined in terms of mechanical
quantities. Section VI describes the realization of the ohm
and its relationship to the kilogram.
Section VII describes QHR standards and how they are
realized and measured. The uncertainty with which we can
a!
Electronic mail: TJWitt@BIPM.FR
cantly smaller than that with which we can realize the ohm.
Furthermore, QHR measurements are easier to carry out than
ohm realizations. For these reasons, a conventional value for
the evaluation of the QHR has been adopted by international
agreement. Indeed, the uncertainty of the best QHR stan-
dards is less than the uncertainty in the values of conven-
tional standard resistors when used as traveling standards.
Today, transportable QHR apparatus is used to carry out the
most accurate resistance comparisons.
Section VIII describes schemes now being developed to
apply the QHE as a reference for capacitance standards. Sec-
tion IX describes likely trends and future developments in
resistance standards, and the use of the QHR standard.
II. USES OF RESISTANCE MEASUREMENTS
This review is concerned with the reproducible and ac-
curate measurement of resistance standards. In the vocabu-
lary of metrology, reproducibility is a measure of the degree
of agreement of the results of measurements of the same
quantity carried out under a variety of conditions. Accuracy
is a measure of the deviation of measurement results from
the true value. We quantify the accuracy of a measurement
by stating its uncertainty.2 With this in mind, we consider
what are the most common or the most demanding applica-
tions of precise resistance measurements.
When we measure the resistance of an object what we
usually do is compare its resistance with some reference re-
sistance, that is, we measure a ratio. Often the objective is to
trace the value of an unknown resistance to that of a national
or international standard. In many important applications,

0034-6748/98/69(8)/2823/21/$15.00 2823 © 1998 American Institute of Physics

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 2824 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
TABLE I. Temperature coefficients ~referenced to 23 °C! and pressure coefficients ~near 1013.25 hPa! of some
standard resistors. Mean values, standard deviations, s, and numbers of standards studied are indicated. For the
last two resistors, only the spread in values of pressure coefficients is indicated.
a 23/1026 /K
Mean s No.
L and N, 1 V 4.291 1.067 75
CSIRO, 1 V 20.097 0.104 23
ESI, 10 kV 0.001 0.081 33
however, it is sufficient to establish resistance ratios on a
local scale, even within a single instrument. Perhaps the most
common examples are resistive voltage dividers and preci-
sion amplifiers for which the gain depends on a resistance
ratio. Such characteristics of the resistors as time stability
and coefficients of temperature and power eventually limit
the stability of the desired ratio. Designers and users of de-
vices requiring stable resistance ratios need to be aware of
the limitations described in Sec. III.
From the point of view of reproducibility and accuracy,
a more demanding class of measurement is that in which a
physical quantity is measured in terms of a reference resistor.
Outside of the field of electrical metrology, resistance
thermometry3 is probably the discipline demanding the high-
est accuracy in resistance measurements. A thermometrist
requiring an uncertainty of 1 mK in the measurement of a
temperature near room temperature using a platinum resis-
tance thermometer ~for which the temperature coefficient of
resistance ~TCR! is 431023 /K) needs an uncertainty of 4
31026 in the measurement of a resistance ratio. As a wire-
wound precision resistor may have a TCR of 131025 /K and
a relative drift rate of more than one in 106 per year, ther-
mometrists are clearly interested in the characteristics of
standard resistors.
Resistance transducers are also used to monitor other
physical quantities such as strain, humidity and pressure.
III. STANDARD RESISTORS
Until the discovery of the QHE in 1980, most NMIs
maintained national standards of resistance using 1 V wire-
wound standard resistors. Paradoxically, the use of QHR
standards has put more stringent demands on the quality of
standard resistors. The QHR is used to directly measure 100
V or 10 kV transfer standards and these must be of very
good quality. Since QHR measurements are carried out no
more often than a few times per year, banks of 1 V and 10
kV resistors serve as reference standards between QHR mea-
surements. Both 1 V and 10 kV resistors are used as travel-
ing standards to compare resistance standards between labo-
ratories. Finally, NMIs which do not possess QHR standards
mostly use banks of 1 V standards as national standards. To
exemplify the qualities and limitations of standard resistors,
we consider three widely used types of wirewound resistors.
These are the types of standard resistors most commonly
used in international comparisons and for which detailed de-
scriptions are available. Two have a nominal value of 1 V
and one has a nominal value of 10 kV.
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Thomas J. Witt
b /1026 /K2 (1/R)(dR/d p)/1029 /hPa
Mean s Mean s No.
20.516 0.031 1.34 0.63 56
20.0141 0.014 20.04 to 20.46 11
20.026 0.005 21.4 to 10.22 10
A. Thomas-type 1 V resistor
Starting in 1930, Thomas, at the National Bureau of
Standards, designed,4 developed, refined and evaluated5,6 a
new type of 1 V standard resistor that was produced com-
mercially by Leeds and Northrup ~L and N! and is still very
widely used in metrology laboratories. In Thomas’ final de-
sign, the resistance coil is made up of a bifilar winding of 28
turns of 2.05 mm diameter manganin wire of nominal com-
position of 83% Cu, 12% Mn, 5% Ni and traces of Fe. To
improve the stability of the resistance with time, the coils
were annealed at 550 °C. The ends of the coil were con-
nected via manganin terminal plates to four nickel-plated Cu
terminals, two current terminals and two voltage terminals,
making the resistor a four-terminal device. The resistance is
defined as the potential difference across the voltage termi-
nals divided by the current through the current terminals.
Thomas chose the proportions of his alloy to achieve a low
thermal emf with respect to Cu ~2–3 m V/K) and a small
TCR near room temperature. At these temperatures, the re-
sistance, R, at temperature t can be approximated by
R ~ t ! 5R ~ t r!@ 11 a r ~ t2t r ! 1 b ~ t2t r ! 2 # , ~1!
where t r is the laboratory reference temperature ~20–28 °C!,
a r is the linear coefficient evaluated at the reference tem-
perature and b is a constant. Table I lists the results of a
survey of temperature coefficients for a number of Thomas-
type resistors.
A characteristic of the Thomas design is the mounting of
the resistance coil inside a coaxial arrangement of thin-
walled brass cylinders, the inner one being about 8 cm in
diameter. To assure good thermal contact with its surround-
ings and minimize changes in resistance due to self-heating,
the coil fits tightly on the inner cylinder but is electrically
insulated from it. To avoid contamination, the coil space is
filled with dry air and sealed. Such 1 V standards are nor-
mally used in stirred and thermostated oil baths that hold
their temperature to within 1 mK. To allow circulation of oil
near the coil, the bottom of the resistor body is open. The top
plate provides mechanical support for the cylinders and ter-
minals. A 25 mm diameter hole in the center promotes oil
circulation and provides a thermometer well. Laboratories
chose their own reference temperature and among NMI’s the
values vary from 20 to 28 °C.7
 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
B. Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Research Organization-type 1 V standard
resistor
The development of the nickel-chromium-aluminum-
copper resistance alloy known by the trade name of
Evanohm led to notable improvements in standard resistors.
In the 1960s the National Measurement Laboratory of the
Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organization ~CSIRO! began the development of a 1 V stan-
dard originally intended for use in an application calling for
high currents ~measurement of the gyromagnetic ratio of the
proton!. As the CSIRO was already carrying out very accu-
rate realizations of the ohm ~Sec. VI!, it was quite natural for
them to develop a better conventional resistor. It was already
known that Evanohm possess a thermal emf, relative to cop-
per, less than that of manganin and a particularly low TCR
that can be adjusted by heat treatment near 530 °C after the
initial anneal of a coil.8 The key contributions of the CSIRO
were to develop heat treatments9 that adjust the TCR almost
to zero at 22.5 °C ~because the value of b is about 21.4
31028 K22, the TCR remains very small in the range 20–
25 °C! and, by extended heat treatment at temperatures be-
low 500 °C, to improve the stability of the resistance. In the
CSIRO design the coil takes the form of approximately six
doubled ~bifilar! turns of 2.1 mm diameter wire bent into a
spiral of 76 mm diameter. Inside the resistor, the coil is sus-
pended by three vertical brass strips lined with polyethylene
shaped to provide a clearance fit around the coil. The mount
is designed to allow only radial movement of the coil. In one
version,9 silicone rubber diaphragms contact the coil. The
main characteristic of the mountings is that they are open so
that the coil is in contact of with its surroundings. The bot-
tom of the resistor is open and the top plate is provided with
a 25 mm diameter hole similar to that of the Thomas type.
The external appearance ~a cylinder of approximately 90 mm
diameter and 140 mm height!, including the current and po-
tential contact arrangements, is very similar to the Thomas
type and is compatible with it. The CSIRO resistor also is
normally used in a stirred oil bath.
C. Electro-Scientific Industries SR 104 10 kV
standard resistor
The third type of standard resistor we describe here is
the Electro-Scientific Industries ~ESI! model SR 104 10 kV
standard.10 This is also widely used in metrology laboratories
and takes the form of ten resistors, each of 1000 V, con-
nected permanently in series. The individual resistors are of
insulated Evanohm wire loosely coiled into a single layer
wound on a mica card. Selecting the 1000 V resistors on the
basis of their individual TCRs sets the composite TCR at
23 °C ~Table I! which, of course, is made as low as possible.
The component resistors are submitted to special heat treat-
ment cycles designed to stabilize the resistance. The series
string is mounted in a sealed metal container nearly filled
with silicone oil and a 10 kV temperature sensor, consisting
of a Cu resistor in series with a stable resistor having a small
TCR, is placed in the oil close to the main resistors. The
entire assembly is placed inside a wooden box. The main
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Thomas J. Witt 2825
resistor is fitted with six binding posts ~the usual four-
terminal connection plus two parallel connections to the oil-
filled metal container!. In contrast to the Thomas and CSIRO
resistors, this resistor is intended for use in open air.
D. Limitations of standard resistors
The measured resistance of standard resistors varies with
temperature, pressure and humidity. It also varies with the
frequency of the measuring current, the power dissipated in
the resistor and the voltage applied to it during the measure-
ment. Measurement results are reproducible to the degree
that these conditions can be controlled or corrections can be
applied. The underlying value of the resistance may vary
with time and measurement results may be influenced by
thermal or hydrometrical hysteresis, thermoelectric effects,
thermal noise and leakage resistance. The chemical nature of
the surrounding medium may effect the resistive element, its
supports, insulation and connections.
The values of temperature and pressure coefficients
listed in Table I were obtained from resistors sent by NMIs
to the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures ~BIPM! for
calibration and comparison. ~Dependence of the resistance
on a parameter, x, is often specified by a relative coefficient
R 21 ( ] R/ ] x). The advantage of heat-treated Evanohm alloy
over heat-treated manganin is clearly shown by the lower
values of a and b for the CSIRO and SR 104 types. Some
points should be noted about the nature of temperature coef-
ficients. Prichard and Small11 used a pair of potential clips to
examine the variation of the temperature coefficient of
CSIRO-type resistors as a function of position along the coil,
and found that the value of a for the complete coil is the
mean of the values for the individual sections. Furthermore,
the variation of a from one section to another has two com-
ponents: a random component and a systematic component.
The latter has a minimum value at the center of the wire.
This means that the total resistance is a function not only of
the measured temperature of the oil in which the resistor is
immersed but also of the temperature gradient within the oil.
Less well understood are possible variations of a with time
and a possible hysteresis with temperature. Similar remarks
can be made about the reproducibility of pressure coeffi-
cients.
Thomas observed6 pressure coefficients varying from 4
31029 to 831029 /hPa in his 1 V resistors and traced the
effect to tight contact between the resistance coil and one
wall of the double-walled container. Variations in pressure,
including atmospheric pressure and that of the head of oil
above a resistor in an oil bath, tend to expand or compress
the walls and thus apply stress to the coils. Commercial ver-
sions of the Thomas resistor have pressure coefficients that
are apparently due to the same mechanism. The CSIRO re-
sistors have very small pressure coefficients. Vincent and
Pailthorp10 observed pressure coefficients in the range
20.231029 to 20.3531029 /hPa in SR 104 resistors. Table
I lists the spread of values of pressure coefficients of CSIRO
and SR 104 resistors measured at the BIPM.
The power coefficient of a resistor is directly propor-
tional to the temperature coefficient and inversely propor-
 2826 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998 Thomas J. Witt

tional to the efficiency with which the surrounding medium

can conduct heat away from the resistor as a current passes
through it, so power coefficients should be measured in situ.
Finally, time enters as a factor. Elmquist and Dziuba12 esti-
mated the relative values of the power coefficients of some
commonly used resistors and give values ranging from 21
31026 to 231026 /W for Thomas resistors; of (060.05)
31026 /W for CSIRO resistors and of (062.0)31026 /W
for Evanohm resistors similar to those used in the SR 104
standard resistor.
Several ways of estimating power coefficients have been
devised. One is to change the value of the current passed
through a resistor and to suppose that the effect of the change
of current on other resistors that may be in the circuit can be
corrected or ignored. Any change in the value of the resistor
under test is presumed to be due to the power coefficient. A
second approach is to use the ‘‘bridge within a bridge’’
method.13 In this, a Wheatstone bridge is constructed of
which one arm is a series-parallel connection ~itself resem-
bling an equal-arm Wheatstone bridge! of the four resistors
under study. Direct current is applied to the entire bridge and
the equilibrium reading of the detector is noted. Then ac is
applied to the bridge within the bridge. If the latter is near
equilibrium, the ac does not affect the dc detector and so a
change in its reading when ac is applied is ascribed to the
effect of ac power applied to the resistors under test.
For low-valued resistors, self-heating limits the allow-
able potential difference across the resistor. This in turn lim-
its the resolution of resistance measurements, so the relative
uncertainty of resistance measurements increases with resis- FIG. 1. ~a! Variation of Ω692BI with time from 1964 to 1986. Values of
resistance were related to the ohm via determinations of the SI ohm at the
tance below 1 V.
CSIRO and comparisons with the BIPM via traveling resistors. The bars
Variations of resistance with time must have been a represent the total combined standard uncertainties. ~b! Variation of the
great source of frustration to early researchers in their efforts resistance of a 100 V standard measured by the QHR standard over almost
to improve standard resistors. Up through the 1960s the best ten years.
that one could do was to compare the variation of resistance
in time with respect to other resistors which themselves were determine the secular behavior ~usually a constant drift rate!
changing. The first major change in this situation occurred in of its national standard. For example, in the United States,
1964 when the CSIRO began regular realizations of the the National Institute of Standards and Technology ~NIST!
ohm14 by means of the calculable capacitor with a relative found17 that its former resistance standard, based on a group
uncertainty of about 231027 and began to participate in of 1 V resistors, was drifting at a rate of 252.9 nV/year with
international comparisons of resistance standards carried out a 1s uncertainty of 4 nV/year.
by the BIPM. This allowed the NMIs to track the time varia- The secular behavior of resistors of values other than 1
tions of the groups of 1 V resistors maintaining their national V has also been determined by comparison with the QHR.
standards. It was eventually found that the mean value of the For example, Fig. 1~b! shows the long-term behavior of a
group of six 1 V standards used to define the resistance 100 V resistor that serves as a transfer standard for the
Ω69-BI drifted in a remarkably constant way with respect to BIPM. This is measured directly with respect to the QHR,
the CSIRO realization of the ohm. This behavior is shown in but resistance scaling from 100 to 1 V and 10 kV is also
Fig. 1~a!. Given the value of Ω69-BI as a function of time, it required. This is carried out using the techniques described
was possible to compare determinations of fundamental below.
physical constants carried out at different times. Conse- Temperature hysteresis has been observed in some com-
quently, in the 1986 adjustment of the fundamental mercial versions of the Thomas-type 1 V resistors. Typically
constants,15 the drift rate of Ω69-BI was taken as an input resistance values increase by about 1.5 parts in 107 after
parameter. Nevertheless, NMIs are always loath to adjust increasing the resistor’s temperature by 2 °C and then return-
values of national standards with the effect that, in the same ing to the original temperature.18 This is a serious impedi-
year, the spread of relative values of the national standards of ment to the use of such resistors as traveling standards that
resistance in the major NMIs was 3.5 parts in 106 . Drift rates may undergo temperature changes or be measured at differ-
of national resistance standards16 ranged from 631028 to ent temperatures in different laboratories. Temperature hys-
2631028 /year. The establishment of the QHR standard in teresis effects have not been observed in the CSIRO resis-
the major NMIs in the 1980s allowed each laboratory to tors. Although Vincent and Pailthorp observed10 some
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 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998 Thomas J. Witt 2827

temperature hysteresis in an SR 104 following a cycle from

room temperature to 65 °C and back, the author observed no
temperature hysteresis, to within a resolution of about one
part in 108 , following a cycle from 20 to 10 °C ~for 16 h! and
back.
Resistance alloys are chosen to have low thermal emfs
with respect to Cu but additional precautions are required to
eliminate their effect on resistance measurements. In dc mea-
surements the principal technique used is to reverse direction
or polarity of the current at its source and to use the mean of
the two detector readings to define the electrical zero. Effects
due to a constantly drifting thermal emf can be removed by
careful selection of measurement sequences and timing.
Drafts and temperature gradients should be avoided. In some
cases, thermal shunts19 are helpful. In one type of 1 V stan-
dard resistor, but not among those described above, relative
errors of one part in 107 or more occur in the measurement
of resistance as a result of the Peltier effect.20 Peltier heating
and cooling at the current terminals, and very close thermal
coupling between current and voltage terminals, result in sig-
nificant thermal emfs that reverse with the current reversals.
A fundamental limit to the measurement of resistance is FIG. 2. Four circuits for measuring resistance ratios: ~a! the classical poten-
thermal noise, as first studied by Johnson21 and Nyquist.22 tiometric method; ~b! a potentiometer made of resistors similar to those
The white thermal noise voltage of a resistance R at thermo- being measured and with resistances in the proportion S/R5A/B; ~c! trans-
dynamic temperature T in a frequency bandwidth B is formation of ~b! into a Wheatstone bridge; ~d! the Kelvin double bridge
A4kTRB, where k is the Boltzmann constant. In dc measure- allowing four-terminal measurements.

ments, this noise limit is seldom achieved because noise lim-

its are higher in many measuring instruments and because of
‘‘1/f ’’ noise that often results from drifting thermal emfs.23
The effect of leakage resistance, R L , on accurate mea-
surements of a resistance R are usually estimated by assum-
ing that R L shunts R and creates a relative decrease of its
value by R/R L . Although by using good insulating material
such as polytetrafluorethylene one can achieve values of R L
of the order of 1014 V for a standard resistor, the leakage
resistance of other components in a circuit, such as switches,
detectors and leads, makes it difficult to maintain a total
leakage resistance much above 1011 V. This means that ac-
curate measurements of resistance above about 100 kV re-
quire special guard circuits to reroute leakage currents that
would tend to shunt the resistor being measured.
The obvious effects of other environmental conditions
on resistors, such as the effect of humidity on the leakage
resistance of the oil surrounding a standard resistor, are not
discussed here, but two more subtle effects are mentioned.
One is the effect of silicone oil on the supporting members of
the CSIRO resistors. The second is small errors in detector
readings24 caused by dielectric polarization of the insulating
material.
Hague and Foord25 give an excellent summary of fre-
quency effects in standard resistors. A standard resistor can
be modeled as a series combination of resistance R and in-
ductance L, together shunted by capacitance C, where L and
C are small. The effective resistance is the real part of the
impedance and at lower angular frequency v it is approxi-
mately equal to R/ @ 11 v 2 C(CR 2 22L) # which varies with
frequency. The phase angle, f , of the resistor is given by
tanf5v(L/R2RC) so that at f 50 the resistance is reduced
to R/(12 v 2 LC). Finally, it should be noted that any energy
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loss effect adds to the ac resistance. Eddy currents are one
example. These complications have undoubtedly hindered
the wider use of ac for resistance measurements. The fre-
quency dependence of some standard resistors used at low
frequency in thermometer bridges has been reported.26 Re-
cent work linking the QHR to capacitance standards has in-
creased interest in ac resistance measurements.
IV. ACCURATE COMPARISON OF RESISTANCE
Techniques for the accurate measurement of resistance
are traditionally divided into bridge and potentiometric meth-
ods. Both methods have been considerably advanced by
techniques using the Josephson effect. There is also a ten-
dency toward increased use of ac techniques.
A. Potentiometers and dc bridges
A straightforward method of comparing a four-terminal
resistance R to a standard resistance S is to connect them in
series and pass a common current through them as shown in
Fig. 2~a!, where R and S denote the corresponding resistors.
A potentiometer is used to measure, in succession, the po-
tential difference across R and S. A suitable potentiometer
would be that shown in Fig. 2~b! which takes the form of a
fixed resistor B, a variable resistor A and a current supply.
The detector can be zeroed by adjusting A so that no current
flows in the potential leads of the resistors. An important
limitation of the accuracy of the potentiometric method is the
extent to which the currents I 1 and I 2 remain constant during
the measurements. Clearly, if the currents change in a sys-
tematic way with time, the effect on the results can be cor-
rected: if the change is linear, it may suffice to measure
following a sequence such as S,R,S. Alternatively, by using
 2828 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
FIG. 3. Current comparator resistance bridge using equality of magnetomo-
tive forces ~ampere turns! to accurately establish the ratio of the currents I 1
and I 2 .
a second detector between the potential terminals of R and A,
simultaneous measurements of the two detectors could be
made. If the ratios of adjacent resistances is nearly equal,
S/A'R/B, a high-impedance voltmeter could be used as the
detector without the need to null the voltage readings: the
arrangement of Fig. 2~b! could then be used to calibrate re-
sistance ratios and to scale resistance.24
If we momentarily ignore the need for four-terminal
measurements, we could use a single current source, con-
necting the outer leads of A and S and the outer leads of B
and R, transforming the circuit into that of Fig. 2~c!, a
Wheatstone bridge. The great advantage of the bridge circuit
is that variations of the supply current produce only second-
ary effects such as a change in sensitivity of the bridge. The
Kelvin double bridge in Fig. 2~d! is the classical way of
transforming a Wheatstone bridge into a bridge allowing
four-terminal resistance measurements, so removing the ef-
fects of resistance in the leads. The method involves auxil-
iary resistors a and b, a low-resistance link L and a switched
link ~not shown! that can be used to make a temporary con-
nection between the upper end of A and the lower end of B.
When it is desirable to use four-terminal resistors for A and B
as well as R and S, then a generalized form of the Kelvin
double bridge, the Warshawsky bridge,27 is used. This bridge
contains adjustable elements and shorting links in all four
corners of the bridge.20,28 Such a bridge has been in use at
the CSIRO for over 20 years. The main inconvenience of
Kelvin-type bridges is the need to make auxiliary adjust-
ments of the bridge.
B. Current comparator bridges
Returning to the potentiometric method of Fig. 2~a!, one
can imagine eliminating the limitation imposed by variations
of the currents by using a device to make the currents track
one another in the two loops containing the resistances to be
compared while isolating the loops from each other. This is
the basis of the current comparator bridge29,30 shown in Fig.
3. If displacement currents are negligible, Ampere’s law
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Thomas J. Witt
equates the magnetomotive force ~mmf!, the line integral of
the magnetic field H over an open surface bounded by the
closed curve C, to the total current SI passing through C,
that is,
R C
H•dl5SI. ~2!
In its original form, the current comparator was an ac device.
Later, it was found29 that the mmf can be measured using a
second-harmonic flux-gate magnetometer. This provided a
way to use the current comparator for dc applications. The
current comparator windings consist of a toroidal magnetic
core upon which are wound primary and secondary coils of
N 1 and N 2 turns, respectively. In operation they carry cur-
rents I 1 and I 2 and are arranged so that N 1 I 1 opposes N 2 I 2 .
The magnetic flux in the core is proportional to the mmf and
the magnetometer can be used to identify a null value of flux
and hence the condition N 1 I 1 5N 2 I 2 . If at the same time
detector D indicates null, then I 1 R 1 5I 2 R 2 so R 1 5R 2
N 1 /N 2 . The ampere-turns are balanced automatically by
feedback from the ampere-turn detector as shown in Fig. 3.
The voltage balance is achieved by adjusting the number of
turns in the primary circuit, N 1 . An added advantage of the
current comparator when used to measure resistance ratios
significantly different from unity is that higher power is dis-
sipated in the lower-valued resistor which is generally made
of heavier wire and designed to dissipate more power. Sev-
eral commercial versions of the direct current comparator
bridge are available and they are widely used in resistance
metrology.
Current comparators are also used to construct potenti-
ometers optimized for the measurement of resistance.31 The
scheme is similar to that of Fig. 3. Resistor R 2 is a dummy
resistor and R 1 is replaced by a series string of 15 resistors
which are compared by the substitution method. An impor-
tant difference with respect to Fig. 3 is that the detector is
automatically zeroed by feeding back current from the detec-
tor output via a precision resistor to a third winding of the
current comparator in such a way as to maintain the detector
reading at null. The current in the auxiliary winding is mea-
sured with a voltmeter connected across the precision resis-
tor.
A particularly elegant form of the current comparator is
the cryogenic current comparator ~CCC!.32 The principle is
illustrated in Fig. 4~a!. If opposed currents I 1 and I 2 pass
through wires enclosed in a superconducting sheath, the
Meissner effect requires that currents circulate on the sheath
in such a way as to maintain zero magnetic flux density in
the interior of the superconductor and a net current I 1 2I 2 on
the outside of the sheath. This net current produces a mag-
netic field that can be detected. From Ampere’s law, the
distribution of current on the sheath does not depend on the
positions of the wires inside. Zero current on the exterior of
the sheath indicates that I 1 5I 2 . This condition is identified
with very high sensitivity using a superconducting quantum
interference device ~SQUID!33 to detect the magnetic field
created by the sheath current. Figure 4~b! illustrates the most
common form of CCC. The coil forms a flat solenoid con-
taining a number of different windings with turns ratios cor-
 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
FIG. 4. The cryogenic current comparator. ~a! Illustration of the principle of
the CCC: the net current on the external surface of the superconducting
shield is I 1 2I 2 ; ~b! a common form of the CCC consisting of a number of
sets of windings forming a toroidal coil. The shield overlaps itself and takes
the form of a snake swallowing its tail. Equality of magnetomotive forces is
detected by measuring the magnetic flux in the pick-up coil by means of a
SQUID.
responding to the resistance ratios to be measured. The tor-
oidal coil is encased in a superconducting shield in the shape
of a snake swallowing its tail which makes overlapping but
insulated circuits around the toroid.
Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of a completely auto-
matic CCC bridge.34 In addition to the ratio windings and the
winding which allows the slave current source to track the
master, it contains an auxiliary winding. Current I 3 , gener-
ated by the detector output, is injected through this winding
to balance the bridge. This current is measured using a
~DVM! to measure the potential difference across a precision
resistor of known value. Today the lowest uncertainty esti-
mates of all resistance comparison schemes are obtained with
CCC bridges.34–37 Commercial CCCs are now available.
C. Resistance scaling
The range of resistance values calibrated by well-
equipped metrology laboratories extends from 1024 V to
1012 V. The lowest uncertainties are attained for decimal
multiples of the ohm in the range from 1 V to 104 V and for
the QHR values, particularly that near 12.9 kV. The follow-
ing discussion refers specifically to the most accurate mea-
surements.
The most direct way to scale resistance accurately by a
factor of 10 is to connect ten nominally equal resistors in
series and compare them one by one with an eleventh resis-
tor of the same nominal value. Great care must be taken to
account for the effects of resistance in contacts and leads. A
more rigorous approach is to use the Hamon series-parallel
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Thomas J. Witt 2829
FIG. 5. A bridge using a CCC such as that in Fig. 4. Electrically it is similar
to the circuit of Fig. 3. This particular arrangement includes automatic ze-
roing of the voltage signal by injecting current I 3 from the detector output
through an auxiliary coil.
build-up technique38 in which auxiliary resistors are used24
to reduce lead resistance errors to a negligible level.39 With
this technique, n resistors of nominal value R are connected
in series to give a total resistance nR. Connecting the set of
resistors in parallel gives a total resistance of R/n so that the
ratio of series to parallel resistance is n 2 . This technique has
been generalized40 to synthesize additional ratio values by
various combinations of dual networks composed of resistors
of the same nominal value. @The concept of dual networks
follows from Kirchhoff’s two laws. The first law is applied
by setting to zero the sums of voltages around a mesh and
the second by setting to zero the sums of currents at nodes.
The dual of a planar resistance network of b branches will
also be a network of b branches in which the meshes of the
original network correspond to nodes of its dual. In trans-
forming a resistive network to its dual, resistances become
conductances, series branches become parallel branches ~and
vice versa! and current sources become voltage sources ~and
vice versa!#. In addition to the possible need to use auxiliary
resistors, another limitation of the accuracy of this technique
is caused by the power coefficients of the component resis-
tors. For example, consider the series-parallel case with n
resistors. In the parallel configuration each resistor carries
1/n of the total applied current, I, and each dissipates a
power of I 2 R/n 2 . In the series configuration, however, each
resistor dissipates a power of I 2 R. Commonly available
series-parallel sets contain ten resistors of 10 V or 1 kV to
provide scaling from 1 to 100 V and from 100 V to 10 kV.
Room-temperature current comparator bridges are also
used for scaling and are particularly useful for resistance
thermometry. However, for practical reasons the number of
turns in any one ratio winding is limited to about 1000. A
resistive divider is normally used for fine adjustment, but this
inherently less stable than the turns-ratio divider.
Cryogenic current comparator bridges are usually re-
served for QHE measurements. They can be wound with
 2830 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
more turns that room-temperature current comparators. For
example, they can have turns ratios of 8260/32 and 8260/64
in order to compare the QHR with a 100 V standard.35 The
same comparators are usually fitted with 1:1, 10:1 and 100:1
ratios to scale resistance by decades from 1 V to 10 kV. By
judiciously dividing the windings into sets, self-consistency
checks can be made on all of these ratios. This is done by
temporarily connecting sets of windings in series and arrang-
ing the direction of current flow in the turns in such a way
that when current passes through the ensemble the total num-
ber of ampere-turns is zero.37 Small errors caused by imper-
fect shielding and effects occurring at the winding ends can
be detected in this way. A SQUID, coupled to the CCC coil
by a superconducting pickup coil, is used as the null detec-
tor.
V. COORDINATING RESISTANCE STANDARDS
Resistance standards should be coherent within a labora-
tory and traceable to a NMI. International comparisons
among NMIs and calibrations of resistance standards by
NMIs provide the technical basis for the traceability of resis-
tance measurements around the world.
A. Maintaining consistent standards within a
laboratory
The application of quality norms in manufacturing and
services obliges providers of these goods and services to es-
tablish and apply documented procedures that, among other
things, establish the traceability of all measurements to na-
tional and, ultimately, international standards. For resist-
ance, this means that all measurements are traceable to
locally maintained standards. The values of these standards
are maintained by periodic calibrations carried out by an ac-
credited metrology laboratory or by a NMI. In some cases
a QHR standard is maintained in the organization’s basic
metrology laboratory. Usually the links to the higher accu-
racy levels are carried out at a few key resistance values such
as 1 V, 10 kV and 1 MV. Scaling of resistance is often
carried out locally and is checked by occasional comparisons
at the scaled values.
B. International coherence of resistance standards
The QHE has, of course, had a great impact on the in-
ternational coherence of resistance standards. Using a QHR
standard does not absolve a NMI from comparing its resis-
tance standards with those of other NMIs. Such comparisons
are described in more detail in Sec. VII H.
If a NMI does not possess a QHR standard, it usually
maintains a national standard in the form of five to ten 1 V
resistors of the highest quality. Values are assigned to the
resistances by sending traveling standards for calibration in a
laboratory, such as the BIPM, that has a QHR standard.
NMIs check on the accuracy of resistance standards, in-
cluding QHR standards, by participating in international
comparisons of resistance standards. Such comparisons are
carried out at 1 V and 10 kV. Comparisons are sometimes
organized by groups of NMIs localized in some geographical
regions. The most widespread and accurate comparisons,
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Thomas J. Witt
FIG. 6. Results of the 1990 international comparison of resistance standards
presented as the difference d5(r LAB2r BIPM) between values assigned to a 1
V resistor by each participating NMI and the BIPM. In order, beginning at
the top, the NMIs listed are those of the German Democratic Republic,
Australia, Japan, Italy, the Soviet Union, France, China, the United States of
America, Norway, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, the Federal
Republic of Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland. Asterisks de-
note laboratories reporting values based on independent QHR standards.
Uncertainty bars represent the total standard uncertainty in the measurement
of d. The last entry is the weighted mean value of the results from partici-
pants reporting results based on their QHR measurements.
however, are those organized by the Consultative Committee
on Electricity ~now renamed the Consultative Committee on
Electricity and Magnetism, CCEM! and carried out by the
BIPM. The last such comparison took place in 1990,41 its
objective being to check the coherence of national standards
based on the QHR. In that comparison, each participating
NMI sent three 1 V and three 10 kV standards to the BIPM
where they were compared with BIPM standard resistors
calibrated by comparison with the QHR. The results obtained
in 1990 for the 1 V standards are shown in Fig. 6 where an
asterisk beside the initials of a NMI indicates that its results
were based on its own measurements of the QHR. Bars in-
dicate the combined type A ~statistical! and type B ~all other
uncertainty components! standard ~1 s ) uncertainty assigned
by each NMI. The value assigned to a 1V resistance by the
BIPM, based on its QHR standard, is 3.2 parts in 108 greater
than the weighted mean of the values assigned by the NMIs
reporting results based on the QHR. The overall combined
standard uncertainty of the weighted mean value is 2.4 parts
in 108 . Figure 7 shows the results for the 10 kV resistors.
The value assigned to a 10 kV resistance by the BIPM,
based on its QHR standard, is 0.9 parts in 108 less than the
weighted mean value assigned by the NMIs that reported
results based on their QHR standard. The overall combined
standard uncertainty of this weighted mean is 2.2 parts in
108 . By examining the consistency of the results obtained for
each NMI from the ~usually! three resistors of each value and
assuming that the dispersion reflects the stability of the trav-
eling standards, we estimate that instability of the traveling
 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
FIG. 7. Results of the 1990 international comparison of resistance standards
presented as the difference D5(R LAB2R BIPM) between values assigned to a
10 kV resistor by each participating NMI and the BIPM. The NMIs con-
cerned are those listed in the caption of Fig. 6. Uncertainty bars represent
the total standard uncertainty in the measurement of D. The mean is the
weighted mean of results based on QHR measurements.
standards limited the uncertainty of this comparison of QHR
standards to 4.3 parts in 108 at 1 V and 3.2 parts in 108 at 10
kV. It should be noted that these results were obtained with
the subsets of resistors that were the most stable when trans-
ported. To test QHR standards, more accurate comparisons
are required: this led to the development of a traveling QHR
standard described in Sec. VII H.
It is not certain that the CCEM will see a need for more
large-scale international comparisons of resistance, but a
need does exist to check the uncertainty estimates of newly
developed or improved QHR standards. There is also a need
to provide NMIs using conventional resistance standards a
way to check the accuracy of their national resistance stan-
dards. Indeed, the CCEM has identified comparisons of
QHR, 1 V and 10 kV standards as key comparisons in the
system for establishing equivalence of basic standards
among NMIs. These needs can be fulfilled by means of bi-
lateral comparisons with the BIPM using the techniques de-
veloped for the large-scale comparison of 1990. The stability
of the BIPM QHR standard, periodically confirmed by onsite
comparisons with the most accurate QHR standards, makes
simultaneous large-scale resistance comparisons unneces-
sary. The bilateral comparisons may be thought of as a single
continuing international comparison.
VI. THE OHM AND THE SI UNITS
The ampere is the base electrical unit of the SI and is
defined42 as that constant current which, if maintained in two
straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible
circular cross section and placed one meter apart in vacuum,
would produce a force of 231027 newton per meter of
length. Here we are concerned with the ohm, V, which is
related to the volt, V, and the watt, W, by definitions that we
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Thomas J. Witt 2831
summarize by V5V/A and V5W/A, so that V5W/A 2 . The
SI electrical units are defined in terms of mechanical units
assuming that mechanical energy and power are equivalent,
respectively, to electrical energy and power.
A. The determination of the ohm
So far, we have considered only resistance comparisons.
A resistance can be measured directly, however, by applying
the SI definitions of the ohm, the volt, the ampere and the
watt ~the power which in one second releases an energy of
one joule!. We refer to this approach as ‘‘determining the
ohm.’’ Until the 1960s the ohm was determined by con-
structing systems of coils of calculable inductance43 and
comparing, in an ac bridge, its reactance with the resistance
of a standard resistor.44 This all changed after a new theorem
in electrostatics was discovered in 1956.45 This affirms that if
an infinitely long right conducting cylinder of any cross sec-
tion is divided into four longitudinal segments and placed in
a vacuum, the cross capacitance per meter of length, C 81 and
C 82 between opposite segments, is given by
exp~ 2 p C 81 /« 0 ! 1exp~ 2 p C 82 /« 0 ! 51, ~3!
where « 0 is the permittivity of vacuum and is related to the
permeability of vacuum, m 0 , and the speed of light in
vacuum, c, by « 0 51/( m 0 c 2 ). In the SI, m 0 and c are defined
quantities with m 0 54 p 31027 H/m and c
5299 792 458 m/s. If C 81 >C 82 ~in practice the segments are
four symmetric rightcircular cylinders placed such that, in a
cross-sectional view, the axes of the cylinders are at the cor-
ners of a square! then the capacitance per meter becomes
(ln 2)/ m 0 c 2 p >1.95 pF/m.
In practice, the effective length is defined by the change
of position of a movable central guard electrode. The change
of capacitance, DC, between two positions of the guard, is
measured. This is of the order of 0.1–1 pF. The correspond-
ing distance between the two positions is measured with a
laser interferometer. With careful design, geometric defects
can be reduced to give a relative uncertainty in DC of less
than one part in 108 . The calculable capacitance values ob-
tained in this way are used to measure the capacitance of a
stable 10 pF standard capacitor in a transformer ratio bridge.
This step assumes that the Thompson–Lampard theorem,
which is a dc theorem, holds for ac. The capacitance is then
scaled up in 10:1 ratios using transformer ratio techniques.
At 1 nF, an impedance bridge, called a quadrature bridge,
operating at an angular frequency v of 104 rad/s is used to
relate the capacitance, C, to the resistance R ~100 kV) of an
ac resistor such that v RC51. A 100:1 ratio ac resistance
bridge is used to scale the resistance to that of a special 1
kV resistor constructed so that its frequency dependence is
small and calculable. This special resistor plays a crucial role
of passing the measurements from ac at 104 rad/s to dc.
Finally, using dc techniques, the 1 kV resistance is related to
1 V dc standards. Remarkably, the uncertainty introduced in
this long impedance chain is small and in the so-called ab-
solute measurement of dc resistance standards46–49 need be
no more than a few parts in 108 .
 2832 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998 Thomas J. Witt

B. Limitation of the ohm as a resistance standard

The determination of the ohm with an accuracy of a few
parts in 107 or better is a very difficult task. With the excep-
tion of the CSIRO, no laboratory has carried out periodic
routine ohm determinations. To date, only three laboratories
have reported total uncertainties approaching one part in 108 .
Clearly, this lack of accessibility is the practical limitation of
maintaining resistance standards by means of determinations
of the ohm.

C. Relationship between the watt, the ampere and the

kilogram
The three important electrical units of the SI are the
ampere, the ohm and the volt. If two of them are known, the
third may be calculated. Until recently, the ampere force
balance50,51 was used to realize the ampere from its definition
and so to link electrical units to mechanical units. In 1975, a
new method was proposed;52 in this, the experiment takes
place in two steps. In the first, an electric current, I, passing
through a coil partially immersed in a magnetic flux density
B is ‘‘weighed.’’ Assuming B is in the horizontal ~x! direc-
tion, the force on the coil is
F5¹ ~ m–B! 5I“ ~ S–B! 5I“Φ,
where m is the magnetic moment of the coil characterized by
an area vector S and Φ5S–B is the magnetic flux threading
the coil. This force is compared, in a balance, to a weight
2M g of mass M subjected to gravitational acceleration g
operating along the z axis. For forces acting in the z direc-
tion, this reduces 2M g5I ] Φ/ ] z.
In the second step the coil is displaced up or down with
a constant velocity u parallel to the z axis, creating an in-
duced electromotive force, E given, in the absence of x and y
components of velocity, by
E52dF/dt52u ] Φ/ ] z.
In this way, ] Φ/ ] z is determined without measuring either
the coil dimensions or B, this being the key principle of the
experiment. Thus M g/I5E/u or written in terms of power,
IE5M gu. The quantities M, g and u are measured accu-
rately and directly, and the current is determined by measur-
ing the potential difference across a resistor. If the resistance
is known in terms of the absolute ohm, and the potential
difference and induced emf are measured in terms of a stable
local voltage reference standard, we can deduce the absolute
value of the voltage standard. This has been carried out in
1985–87 at the National Physical Laboratory ~NPL!53,54 with
a relative uncertainty of 7.7 parts in 108 .
An alternative approach is to measure the potential dif-
ference and the induced emf in terms of a Josephson voltage
standard55 having a reproducibility of a few parts in 1010,
and the resistance in terms of a QHR having a reproducibil-
ity of a few parts in 109 . There is then the possibility of
using the watt experiment to monitor a mass, which can in
turn be accurately related to the kilogram. Such an experi-
ment would allow us, for the first time, to monitor the sta-
bility of the kilogram, the last artifact standard and could
conceivably lead to a new definition of the kilogram open to
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FIG. 8. Schematic energy diagram ~not to scale! of a GaAs/Alx Ga12x As
heterostructure interface producing a 2DEG. As the interface is formed,
electrons from the donor Si atoms diffuse into the GaAs, equilibrate the
Fermi energies, E F , and create discontinuities and bending in the conduc-
tion and valence bands. Electrons in the 2DEG are attracted to the Si ion
~4! cores but cannot surmount the energy barrier.
realization in any well-equipped laboratory. This develop-
ment would first require a reduction in the uncertainty of the
present watt experiments by one to two orders of magnitude.
The ohm and watt experiments exemplify the interde-
pendence of the determined values of the SI units. This in-
terdependence is mirrored in the values assigned to the fun-
damental physical constants. Before developing this, we first
must examine the quantum Hall effect.
~5! VII. THE QUANTUM HALL EFFECT AS A REFERENCE
STANDARD OF RESISTANCE
From the time of its discovery,1 the QHR has been rec-
ognized as an invariable standard of resistance: several ex-
cellent review articles56–60 have focused on this aspect. A
resource letter on the QHE is also available.61 The present
description emphasizes recent developments.
A. Two-dimensional electron gas
For QHR metrology work, two types of device can be
used to realize a two-dimensional electron gas ~2DEG!,
AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunctions and Si metal-oxide field-
effect transistors ~MOSFETs!. The two have much in com-
mon but MOSFETs are less often used today and so here the
detailed description is restricted to the heterojunctions. Het-
erojunctions depend on the use of epitaxy techniques62,63 to
grow nearly perfect single crystals consisting of different
semiconductors having different gap energies but closely
matched lattice spacings. This is the case, for example, with
GaAs and the alloy Alx Ga12x As where x is the Al concen-
tration. The energy gap E g can be adjusted by varying x. For
example,64 at 2 K, E g '(1.519411.36x10.22x 2 ) eV for
0.1,x,0.75. For metrology work, the value x'0.3 is pre-
 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
ferred. This alloy is doped with n-type donors ~Si! while the
GaAs is slightly p-type. When the two materials are brought
together at a plane interface, the situation in some ways re-
sembles a p-n junction. The difference between the chemical
potentials produces electron tunneling from the Alx Ga12x As
into the GaAs where the electrons rapidly lose energy
through phonon scattering and end up in a state from which
reverse tunneling is energetically impossible.65 This results
in the situation illustrated schematically66 in Fig. 8 in which
the Fermi energies are equal, an immobile ~depletion! layer
of positively charged cores is left in the Alx Ga12x As adja-
cent to the interface and a trough of free electrons is formed
adjacent to the interface on the GaAs side. The ionized
atomic cores in the Alx Ga12x As depletion layer create the
electric field pulling the free electrons towards the interface.
The conduction band discontinuity, which is proportional to
the difference between the energy gaps in Alx Ga12x As and
GaAs,67 completes, at the interface, the nearly triangular po-
tential well containing the free electrons. An important re-
finement is the technique of modulation doping68 of the
Alx Ga12x As adjacent to the interface. Over a distance of
about 5–10 nm, the Alx Ga12x As is left intentionally un-
doped. This spacer separates the electrons from the major
impurity scattering centers and greatly increases the electron
mobility, m ~defined as the magnitude of the drift velocity
per unit electric field!. The potential well extends a distance
of about 10 nm into the GaAs. The effective mass m * of an
electron in GaAs is about 0.068 m e (m e 5 the free electron
mass! and the Fermi energy is about 1 eV corresponding to a
de Broglie wavelength of approximately 5 nm. So con-
strained, the electron energy is quantized into levels called
sub-bands. If the electron concentration ~areal density! is
small, only the ground state sub-band is occupied because it
is separated from the next highest sub-band by about 10
meV69 while at 4.2 K the thermal energy, kT50.36 meV.
B. Description of the QHE
If, in an Alx Ga12x As/GaAs heterojunction, a strong
magnetic flux density B is applied along the z axis, normal to
the interface, the 2DEG electrons are constrained to move in
circular orbits having cyclotron energies ~Landau levels! E l
5(l1 21 )\ v c , where v c is the cyclotron frequency, eB/m*,
and l is a non-negative integer. A further spin splitting occurs
and doubles the number of quantized energy states. In the
presence of B the density of states function becomes a series
of spikes separated by energy \ v c . In practice, a certain
amount of randomness or disorder is always present as a
result of impurities and various defects, smearing the density
of states function into a set of peaked bands of width Γ.
Necessarily, Γ,\ v c and, at least in the case of a dense
distribution of impurity scatterers,70 Γ5\ v c A2/p B m so that
a rather high value of m is required.
Under these conditions the electron energies are com-
pletely quantized. Magnetic flux is quantized in units of
D f 5h/e5BDA, so the number of Landau levels per unit
area, N, is 1/DA5Be/h.
The Hall resistance, R H , is the ratio of the Hall voltage,
U H , measured across the 2DEG device in the y direction,
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Thomas J. Witt 2833
orthogonal to both the applied current I (x direction! and B.
For a 2DEG with an areal carrier density of n s the classical
equation of electron motion leads to U H 5(B/n s e)I.
If the ~integral! number of fully occupied energy levels
is i, then n s 5iN5iBe/h and
R H~ i ! 5 ~ h/ie 2 ! 5R K /i, i51,2,3,... , ~6!
where R K is the von Klitzing constant >25 812.807 V.
This is a remarkable result in several respects. The QHR
is independent of the device geometry and material, and is
simply proportional to the ratio of two fundamental con-
stants. Perhaps the most remarkable and useful aspect of the
QHR is that the resistance is quantized not simply at one
particular value of B but over a range of values of B or,
correspondingly, over a range of gate voltages in Si-
MOSFET devices. Although a complete theory of the QHE
is not yet available, it is widely accepted that the resistance
plateaus arise from the localization71 of electrons.
This description of the QHE has, so far, followed from a
simple model of a single electron in a strong magnetic field.
In a perfect crystalline solid, the wave function describing
electron motion extends throughout the crystal. In the case of
localization, the wave functions describing the electron mo-
tion are short range and extend over distances considerably
smaller than the dimensions of the sample. Localization
arises from imperfections in the inversion layer such as
charged impurities, interface defects, impurities within a
magnetic length ~the cyclotron radius corresponding to
ground state Landau energy, l B5 A\/eB) of the inversion
layer, macroscopic impurities and impurities at distances
greater than l B from the inversion layer. It results in a mo-
bility gap ~‘‘mobility’’ in the general dictionary sense! in the
density of states disposed symmetrically above and below
each Landau energy level. States of energy near E l and
within the mobility edges, correspond to wave functions ex-
tending throughout the crystal and are responsible for carry-
ing current. States with energies greater than the upper mo-
bility edge, just above E l and below the lower mobility edge
near E l11 , are localized and cannot contribute to the Hall
conductivity. The Hall conductivity and consequently the
Hall resistance remain constant as the Fermi level sweeps
through the localized energy states forming the lth QHR pla-
teau.
For the case of randomly distributed potentials having
ranges much greater than l B and in the limit, u B u →`, a
classical percolation picture provides a simplified analogy.72
We imagine a flat porous terrain covered with a great number
of steep hills and valleys corresponding to the various ran-
dom potentials acting on the 2DEG. Filling the terrain with
water corresponds to raising the energy level by increasing B
in a heterostructure. For low water levels, valleys form lakes
~equipotential contours! and it is not possible to cross the
terrain in a boat. If the water level rises high enough, a per-
colation path appears allowing passage by boat. This level
corresponds to the lower mobility edge.
Figure 9 illustrates many of the foregoing features; it is
based on measurements made at the BIPM on a
GaAs/Alx Ga12x As heterostructure of the form shown in the
inset. The upper curve shows the transverse Hall resistance
 2834 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
FIG. 9. Plots of the longitudinal resistance, R xx , and transverse or Hall
resistance, R H5R xy , as a function of applied magnetic flux density, for a
GaAs/Alx Ga12x As heterostructure at 0.5 K. Over certain ranges of B, R xx
falls to zero and R xy 5R K /i where i is an integer quantum number. The
insets show the sample shape and electrical contacts and define the
coordinates.
R xy , as a function of B up to about 12 T. The QHR plateaus
are clearly visible. They occur for values of the Landau level
filling factors n 52 p l B2 n s . For this sample, precise QHR
measurements were made for the n 5i52 and 4 plateaus. In
a two-dimensional conductor, resistivity and resistance have
the same unit, ohm. The classical expression for the two-
dimensional Hall resistivity is r xy 5B/en s 5R xy and this
holds for small values of B so that the areal density of elec-
trons can be conveniently determined from the plot using the
expression n s 5(edR xy /dB) 21 which, in this case, is ap-
proximately equal to 631015/m2. The same expression also
gives n 5h/(e 2 R xy ) and for the plateaus this is an integer, i.
~In fact, a fractional QHE was discovered73 soon after the
integer QHE but fractional values are not used to provide
resistance standards.! The second plot in Fig. 9 shows the
longitudinal resistance R xx which is related to the longitudi-
nal resistivity by the expression r xx 5R xx (W/L), where W
and L are, respectively, the effective sample width and the
distance along the length of the sample between the voltage
electrodes used in the four-terminal measurement of R xx . A
more detailed examination of the magnetoconductivity of a
2DEG reveals that the quantization of the Hall resistance is
complete when r xx 50 at T50. When these conditions are
not met, deviations between the measured value of R H and
the theoretical value given by Eq. ~6! have been observed.
As B increases, a peak occurs in R xx each time the number of
occupied Landau levels changes and at these values of B the
electron wave functions are extended. For higher values of B,
the localization transitions occur as B increases slightly
above the value corresponding to a peak; r xx plunges to zero
and R H takes on the quantized value over the plateau region.
At low values of B, R xx oscillates rapidly as a function of
B 21 ; these are known as the Shubnikov–deHaas oscilla-
tions. The electron areal density can also be deduced from
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Thomas J. Witt
the period in B 21 of these oscillations. Finally, the electron
mobility can be estimated by measuring the value of R xx at
B50 and using the expression m 51/@ n s e r xx (0) #
5(dR xy /dB)(L/W) @ 1/R xx (0) # . In the case shown in Fig. 9,
m '22 T21 .
The inset of Fig. 9 defines the coordinates, shows the
shape of the device, including contacts, and indicates the
parameters. The curved lines inside the device indicate elec-
tron flow for the current levels used in accurate QHR mea-
surements in the framework of a model that includes a con-
fining potential ~the edges of the device! and the potential
due to the redistribution of charge brought about by the Lor-
entz force on the electrons.74 Cage75 provides a recent sum-
mary of this as well as of the edge-channel and skipping-
orbit models in which current flow occurs at the sample
edges.
C. Deviations of measured QHR values from the ideal
value
The first measurements of the QHR were of suffici-
ently high reproducibility that metrologists immediately
saw the possibility of using it as a resistance standard.
Because the simple theory holds at T50 and in the limit
r xx →0, it is important to assess the accuracy of results ob-
tained under real conditions. Experiments on MOSFETs,76
GaAs/Alx Ga12x As heterojunctions48,77–79 and Inx Ga12x As/
InP heterojunctions ~with x50.5380! have shown that at fi-
nite temperatures the deviation of R H from the value at
T50, usually written as D r xy , can be expressed in the form
D r xy 5 r xy ~ T ! 2 r xy ~ 0 ! 's r min
xx ~ T ! , ~7!
where s can be positive or negative but u s u ,1. For a given
device the values of s can change from one contact pair to
another. The minimum value of the longitudinal resistivity
over the range of B corresponding to the plateau under study,
r min
xx , is strongly temperature dependent and this dependence
may change after cycling the sample to room temperature
and back. A null value of s was reported81 in one case.
As in any resistance measurement, attempts to improve
the QHR measurement resolution by increasing the measur-
ing current must be undertaken with care. At high current
densities, the QHE breaks down.82 Even at the current levels
normally used for metrological-quality measurements
~roughly ranging from 10 to 50 m A!, variations of r xx with
current result in deviations of r xy from the quantized value
described by the linear dependence48,60 of Eq. ~7!. The varia-
tion of r xx with temperature and current can be summarized
by stating that, for metrology, the important experimental
observation is that D r xy →0 as T→0 and r min
xx →0, indicating
that r xy (0) is indeed a constant.
Reports of observations of incomplete quantization
~meaning r xx Þ0), as well as other imperfections resulting in
measured values of r xy Þh/ie 2 , led the CCE to form a work-
ing group of experts to formulate a set of Technical Guide-
lines for Reliable Measurements of the QHR.83 The thor-
oughness of the guidelines is demonstrated by the fact that
no aberrations in the field of dc QHR metrology have since
been reported. Concerning r xx measurements, the guidelines
 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
include the suggestion that r xx should be measured on each
side of the sample, preferably using the outer voltage con-
tacts ~see inset of Fig. 9!. The r xy measurements should be
based on measurements involving at least two contact pairs,
preferably those used for the r xx measurements. Another im-
portant check suggested in the guidelines is the verification
of contact resistance. High resistance in either the current or
voltage contacts can greatly increased noise. Since contact
resistance can change with time, the contacts should be mea-
sured before each metrological-quality QHR measurement.
Another important check is to verify the absence of signifi-
cant parallel conduction paths shunting the Hall resistance:
this is done by measuring R H on at least two different pla-
teaus.
D. Devices and physical conditions for carrying out
accurate QHR measurements
From the preceding section, it is clear that the choice of
magnet and cryostat are dictated by the characteristics of the
QHR sample. High-field and low-temperature conditions are
expensive. An ‘‘entry level’’ system would be a NbTi super-
conducting magnet producing magnetic flux densities of up
to about 9.5 T in a 4.2 K bath. A pumped 4 He refrigerator
inserted in the bore can produce device temperatures down to
'1.3 K. Most metrological-quality measurements on Si-
MOSFET devices have been carried out in magnetic flux
densities in the range from 10 to 15.6 T. Measurements of
metrological quality on GaAs heterostructures, however, can
be made at lower values of B. Although many accurate mea-
surements have been carried out in these devices on the i
54 plateau, it is important to be able to measure at i52 to
check that there are no leakage currents. Some accurate mea-
surements on GaAs devices have been carried out at i53, 6
and 8, but this generally requires temperatures below 1.3 K.
The value of magnetic flux density corresponding to the ith
plateau may be expressed as B(i)5n s eR H(i), and taking i
52 and B<9 T gives n s <4.331015 m22 . A recent survey
of values of mobility and areal density of GaAs devices used
in metrological measurements84 shows that for 10 of the 24
devices examined, n s<431015 m22 . Although the magnetic
flux densities and temperatures used in metrological mea-
surements are not always specified, a literature survey pre-
pared for this review indicates that in at least four cases
R H~2! was accurately measured at or below 9.5 T and near or
above 1.3 K.
Beyond the entry-level system, superconducting magnets
with Nb3 Sn sections capable of producing fields of 12 T at
4.2 K are available at about twice the cost of commercial
NbTi magnets.
In the first few years following the discovery of the
QHE, its application in metrology was hampered by the se-
vere shortage of good metrological-quality GaAs devices.
The situation has improved with the sustained development
of devices at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and
in some metrology institutes, notably, the Physikalish-
Technische Bundesanstalt ~PTB!, Germany. The most
widely available GaAs devices, however, are those fabri-
cated by the Laboratoires d’Electronique, Philips for a joint
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Thomas J. Witt 2835
BIPM/EUROMET/BNM project.79 These samples can be
used to make measurements of R H~2! at 10 T and 1.3 K. The
BIPM makes these devices available to NMIs in member
states of the Meter Convention.
E. Accurate measurements of the QHR
For metrology purposes, QHR measurement procedures
can be considered as taking place in two stages; ~1! the mea-
surement of the QHR with respect to a transfer standard re-
sistor and ~2! scaling from the transfer standard to secondary
reference standards, which have traditionally been 1V wire-
wound resistors. Perhaps the simplest way of carrying out
step 1 is to compare the QHR directly with a standard resis-
tor of nominal value close to R H (2) or R H (4). 59,81 One par-
ticularly simple resistance comparator takes the form of a
pair of separate identical circuits as in Fig. 2~b!. Mercury
batteries supply nearly constant and nearly equal currents ~of
the order of 10 m A). Referring to Fig. 2~b!, the QHR device
of resistance R H(i) replaces R, and resistors S and A have
values close to R H (i). A DVM is used as the detector. This
approach gives a reproducibility of the order of a few parts in
108 for the ratio of the QHR to a standard resistor of the
same nominal value. Several other potentiometric
techniques,85–88 developed in the 1980s, also used standard
resistors of nominal value R H(i).
The next problem is to relate the measured resistance
ratio to the value of a 1 V resistor. The NIST developed a
technique89 that uses a set of nine card-wound Evanohm re-
sistors in a sealed oilfilled enclosure. Of these, eight resistors
are of 800 V and the ninth has a value of 53.20 V. The total
series resistance of 6453.20 V is compared with R H(4). The
eight 800 V resistors can be connected in parallel to give 100
V which is compared with the series connection of ten 10 V
resistors forming a Hamon38 100 V/1 V series/parallel net-
work. The 1 V Hamon configuration is then compared to the
NIST 1V reference standards. The 53.20 V resistor is com-
pared to the 100 V series Hamon resistance using a resis-
tance bridge. At the CSIRO,87 an 83-element buildup
resistor90 was used to scale from 6453.2 to 1 V.
As early as 1983 a CCC bridge91 was used86 to scale
from 6453 to 100 V. A Hamon network completed the scal-
ing to 1 V.
In a common potentiometric method92 used early in ac-
curate QHR measurements, a nearly constant current was
passed through a 10 kV standard resistor in series with a
QHR and the potential differences were measured with a
modified commercial potentiometer based on a room-
temperature current comparator. This technique requires
careful calibration of the potentiometer ratios and careful
checks must be made each time it is used. Several groups
used this approach,93–96 the uncertainty of the measured ratio
of the QHR to a 10 kV standard resistor being limited to
about five parts in 108 .
A remarkable development in QHR measurements was
the use of a potentiometer based on a set of 20 individually
biased Josephson junctions producing outputs of 64.5 and
100 mV from multiple taps.97,98 This was followed by a dif-
ferent type of Josephson potentiometer using an array of
 2836 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
1440 Josephson junctions arranged in series.99 In this array
unbiased Josephson voltage steps produce output voltages
U J 5nh f /2e, where f is the stabilized frequency of a 70 GHz
mm wave source and n is an integer quantum number. Such
arrays are now widely used as basic reference standards of
voltage55 in many NMIs and the best are consistent to a few
parts in 1010. To measure the QHR with this type of array, a
current of 13.4 m A was passed through a QHR device set on
the i52 plateau. The resulting potential difference was con-
nected in series opposition with the output voltage corre-
sponding to the n51200 voltage step of the array. Coarse
adjustment of the array output is easily obtained by varying n
and fine adjustment by varying f. This technique has been
used100 to measure a 10 kV standard resistor with respect to
the QHR with a relative uncertainty of 7.3 parts in 109 . Had
it not been for the successful adaptation of the CCC to QHR
measurements, the Josephson potentiometer might well have
become the method of choice for accurate QHR measure-
ments. The stability of the current is, however, an important
drawback.
The CCC is a particularly elegant solution to the prob-
lem of comparing the QHR with a resistance that is a deci-
mal multiple of the ohm.80 Using, for example, 2065 turns in
the primary circuit containing the QHR R H (2) and 16 turns
in the secondary circuit containing a 100 V standard resistor,
gives a ratio that is only about 12 parts in 106 smaller than
the nominal resistance ratio to be determined and it is easy to
compensate for this difference by injecting a small current,
whose value needs to be known with only a modest accu-
racy, into a compensation winding on the CCC. Many coils
with different numbers of turns can be incorporated in the
same CCC. For example, a CCC having coils with the fol-
lowing numbers of turns: 16,16,32,64,128,1600,465, is used
to measure the resistance ratios 100 V/1 V ~1600/16!, 10
kV/100 V ~1600/16!, R H (2)/100 V ~2065/16!, R H (4)/100
V ~2065/32!, etc.101 Thus the same CCC bridge can be used
to compare both the QHR with the resistance of a 100 V
transfer resistor and the 100 V resistance with that of a 1 V
resistor. The accuracy of the current division can be checked
by injecting a current through a series connection of two sets
of coils with the same total number of turns and connected so
that the currents in the two sets flow in opposite directions.
Another way of balancing a CCC bridge is to use the
output of the null detector to generate a balancing current
that is injected through an auxiliary winding of the CCC and
measured as in Fig. 5.41,102
As early as 1986 proposals were made to use CCC
bridges with low-frequency ac for metrological purposes.103
A CCC bridge operating from dc to 4 Hz104 was successfully
used to measure the QHR with an uncertainty of a few parts
in 109 . Because the measuring current is reversed every
cycle, ac eliminates the effects of thermal emfs in the voltage
leads and thus removes a major source of 1/f noise. By using
ac, lock-in amplifiers and other phase-sensitive detection
techniques can be applied to achieve higher sensitivity than
dc detectors and to eliminate other unwanted effects such as
power-line frequency noise and low-frequency noise.
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F. Limitations on the accuracy of QHR measurements
1. Measurement uncertainties
A limit on the type A ~statistical! uncertainty of QHR
measurements is imposed by Johnson voltage noise in the
resistance being measured. The type A uncertainty in the
potentiometric method has been compared60 with that of the
CCC bridge method for the case in which a potentiometer is
used to compare R H (4) to a room-temperature resistor of the
same value and a CCC bridge is used to compare R H (4) with
a 100 V resistor at room temperature. For a detector band-
width of 1 Hz the rms noise voltage of 6453 V is 10.3 nV at
300 K and 0.6 nV at 1 K. For 100 V it is 1.3 nV at 300 K.
The current noise of a good nanovoltmeter ~0.26 pA Hz21/2)
creates an additional noise voltage across the 6453 V resistor
of 1.7 nV. Taking this into account, a CCC measurement of
the ratio of R H (4)/100 V is subject to a total noise voltage of
2.2 nV in a 1 Hz bandwidth, while the same ratio determined
by the potentiometric method is subject to a noise voltage for
the same bandwidth of 14.6 nV ( A2310.3 nV!, when we
take into account that the 6453 V room-temperature resistor
must be measured twice. In the case of white noise, for each
method the total measurement time needed to achieve the
same type A uncertainty is proportional to the square of the
rms noise voltage.23 This means that the measurement time
for the potentiometric method is 45 times greater than that
for the CCC method.
For the potentiometric method, uncertainties of a non-
statistical nature ~type B! arise when R H (i) is measured in
terms of a transfer standard resistor of the same nominal
value. These are principally due to leakage resistance and
detector-related effects. In the scaling of the transfer standard
to a practical value, other type B uncertainties arise from the
effects of temperature, pressure, power, leakage resistance,
lead resistance and detector linearity. For one of the most
accurate potentiometric QHR measurements,17 the total type
B uncertainty obtained for the ratio of R H (4)/100 V is 10.5
parts in 109 . For the most accurate CCC bridges, the total
root-sum-square type B relative uncertainty in the measure-
ment of the ratio R H (i)/100 V can be below 2 parts in 109 .
The greatest uncertainties are in the calibration of the resis-
tive divider that generates the balancing current, from leak-
age resistance and from imperfect winding ratios.46,105–107 As
these uncertainty sources can change with time and with cy-
cling of the temperature it is important that laboratories com-
pare the QHR periodically with well-characterized standard
resistors. Even if their resistances drift with time, the QHR
measurements provide a means of detecting abrupt changes
in QHR measurement apparatus caused, for example, by
degradation of the CCC shielding or of the leakage resistance
in the circuit.
2. Uncertainty limits imposed by devices
It has been proposed that a number of parameters may
influence the accuracy of QHR measurements. These in-
clude; temperature ~see Sec. VII C!, device type, plateau
quantum number, device mobility, magnetic flux density,
gate voltage, device size, current amplitude, contact resis-
tance and frequency of the source–drain current. Present
 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
theories of the QHR offer only limited guidance on how
these parameters affect the accuracy of QHR measurements,
so we must rely on careful experiments to evaluate their
influence.
Although comparisons of the QHR values measured in
GaAs heterostructures with those measured in Si-MOSFET
devices usually lead to the conclusion that the QHR is inde-
pendent of the type of device, several groups96,108 have re-
ported relative differences of several parts in 107 . A direct
comparison109 of high-quality Si-MOSFET and GaAs de-
vices using a very accurate CCC bridge led to the conclusion
that the QHR in the two devices is identical to within an
uncertainty of 3.5 parts in 1010. A more recent
comparison110,111 of high-quality Si-MOSFET and GaAs de-
vices by a similar method found agreement within a relative
uncertainty of 2.3 parts in 1010. The latter study included
measurements on a Si-MOSFET device from the same wafer
as those for which anomalous values of R H were obtained. It
found that the longitudinal voltage U xx undulates as a func-
tion of gate voltage and that for most values of gate voltage,
U G , along a ‘‘plateau,’’ U xx is not simultaneously zero on
both sides of the device. The Guidelines83 treat null values of
U xx as essential conditions which must be verified in the
course of accurate QHR measurements. No deviations from
the ideal value of R H have been reported when the Guide-
lines are rigorously followed.
In GaAs devices, possible variations of R H as a function
of B are analogous to possible small variations of R H as a
function of U G in gated devices. Such variations of R H as a
function of B are characteristic of individual samples so this
must be verified in the course of accurate QHR measure-
ments.
Metrologists try to measure R H on several plateaus, not
only to check for possible leakage effects but also to confirm
that the value they measure for iR H (i) is independent of the
plateau quantum number i. The most comprehensive and pre-
cise study of this kind on GaAs devices reports111 that
iR H ~ i !
5121.1310210
2R H ~ 2 !
i51,3,4,6,8, u52.9310210,
where u is the random uncertainty.
To examine a possible dependence of the QHR on de-
vice width, measurements have been carried out112 on GaAs
Hall bars ranging in width from 10 to 1000 m m. Typical
measurement uncertainties were below 1 part in 109 and, to
this precision, no width dependence has been observed.
The QHE breaks down at high currents,82,113 typically of
the order of several hundred microamperes. However, in-
creases in r xx have been observed at much lower currents
because electrons are subject to local heating. For values of
source drain current, I SD , below 130 m A the current depen-
dence of r xx in one GaAs device was found to vary as60
r xx 5 r xx ~ 0 ! •exp@ a ~ T ! I SD# ,
where a(T) is a function of temperature and falls to zero
near 0.33 K.
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For accurate measurements on small Si-MOSFET de-
vices the upper current limit is about 10 m A but for larger
Si-MOSFET devices, and for many GaAs devices, the cur-
rent limit may be over 50 m A. At these current levels the
effect of self-heating in the reference resistor may set the
limit on the measuring current. For example, when using a
CCC bridge to measure R H (2) with respect to a reference
resistor of 100 V and a power coefficient of resistance of 1
31026 /W, the current through the QHR should not exceed
40 m A.
Resistance exceeding 1 kV in the contacts to the 2DEG
increases the noise in QHR measurements.83 Worse, in some
cases deviations DR H have been observed between the mea-
sured value of R H and its expected value in samples having a
high resistance, R C , in the voltage contacts.83 A recent
study114 of DR H as a function of the resistance of the voltage
contacts confirms that there is no simple relation between
DR H and R C . The maximum value of u DR H u /R H (i) is pro-
portional to R C /R H (i) and for R C 'R H (i) deviations of sev-
eral parts in 107 were observed. High contact resistance can
develop if a sample is cooled rapidly or sometimes even if it
is simply left for a long time at liquid helium temperatures.
Before 1992, accurate QHR measurements were carried
out using dc. There was one exception: ac measurements of
the QHR were carried out at frequencies up to 4 Hz104 using
a CCC, confirming that the QHR is well defined at very low
frequencies. Work at higher frequencies is discussed in Sec.
VIII.
G. Expressing R H in terms of the ohm
Since we are able to measure reference standards of re-
sistance with respect to the QHR with an uncertainty of
nearly one part in 109 we can be confident, to this level of
uncertainty, that reference standards are constant in time. To
maintain the coherence of the SI and of all mechanical and
electrical measurements it is important to be able to link R H
to the ohm. We have shown in Sec. VI A that even the most
accurate determinations of the ohm have an uncertainty of a
few parts in 108 . This raises the question of whether the
~8! QHR should be used to assure worldwide coherence of re-
sistance standards, and so stabilize resistance standards,
without losing coherence with the SI. The task of finding a
solution to this problem was assigned to the CCE. Their
solution115 was first to state that, in the limit as r xx ap-
proaches zero the Hall resistance of the ith plateau, defined
as the quotient of the Hall voltage of the ith plateau to the
current, is given by
R H ~ i ! 5R K /i, ~10!
where i is an integer and R K is the von Klitzing constant, and
then to propose that a value of R K , denoted R K290 , be ac-
cepted by convention as having exactly the value
R K290525 812.807 V. ~11!
~9!
This was agreed. Much discussion then went into the selec-
tion of a value for R K290 . This was not merely a question of
deciding which were the most accurate determinations of the
 2838 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
FIG. 10. Comparison of some determinations of R K with the conventional
value R K290 . Bars indicate total standard uncertainties. Values marked V
are based on electrical determinations of the ohm via the calculable capaci-
tor. The values marked a and a (a e ) are based on determinations of the fine
structure constant, the latter via calculations at Cornell University using the
experimental value of the electron moment anomaly measured by the group
from the University of Washington.
ohm, but also of how to refer to the relationship between R K
and the fundamental physical constants. This requires that
R K 5h/e 2 5 m 0 c/ ~ 2 a ! , ~12!
where m 0 and c are defined quantities ~see Sec. VI A! and a
is the fine structure constant. ~With regard to this equation,
note that m 0 c is the impedance of free space!. To many
experts, the link to the fundamental constants is vital because
it provides a good explanation of why R K is constant.
Because a itself is related to other fundamental
constants,15 alternative values of R K can be derived from
physical constants. Because of its very low uncertainty, one
value stands out, that derived from the measurements of the
electron magnetic moment anomaly a e 116 and the theoretical
expression for a e arising from numerical integrations.117,118
The value finally chosen for R K290 represents the mean
of the three most accurate direct measurements of R K with
respect to the ohm and the value following from the calcu-
lation of a . The CCE assigned a relative uncertainty of 2
31027 to the value of R K290 with respect to the SI value of
R K . The conventional value of R K290 was accepted by all
member-states of the Metre Convention and went into effect
on 1 January 1990. A recent review119 of the latest or most
accurate results of electrical determinations of R K , 46,47,49
along with some recent results based on fundamental con-
stants and the relation between R K and a , 120,121 show good
agreement among themselves and with the conventional
value, R K290 . This is illustrated in Fig. 10.
H. Comparisons of resistance standards based on
the QHR
Immediately following the announcement of von Klitz-
ing’s discovery, metrology laboratories set out to measure
the QHR with respect to conventional resistance standards.
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Suitable devices were very difficult to obtain and experimen-
tal facilities were more expensive than today. It was very
important to check for possible systematic errors by compar-
ing results among laboratories. The first large-scale interna-
tional comparison of resistance standards based on the QHR
was carried out by the BIPM in 1987122 using 1 V travelling
standards. The results for five of the six laboratories claiming
the smallest uncertainties ~total relative uncertainty of 3.6
parts in 108 or less in the measurement of R H with respect to
their national resistance standard! agreed with the weighted
mean to within the combined standard uncertainties. This
close agreement was an important factor in the decision to
fix a conventional value of R K put into effect in 1990.
As noted in Sec. V B, a similar comparison was carried
out in 1990. One of the conclusions reached on completion
of this study was that the uncertainty of such comparisons is
limited by the stability of the conventional travelling stan-
dard resistors to three or four parts in 108 . To compare QHR
standards at a level that really tests the estimated uncertainty
budgets, a method has since been developed at the BIPM.
With it, comparison results do not depend on predicting the
behavior of standard resistors when they are transported.105
This uses a complete transportable QHE system: a cryostat
containing a superconducting magnet and low temperature
insert, a set of QHE samples mounted on a cryogenic probe,
and a room-temperature ac resistance-ratio bridge.123 Rela-
tive to a CCC bridge, the latter instrument is rugged, easily
transported, simple to operate, and virtually insensitive to
electromagnetic interference and fluctuations in room tem-
perature. Using ac eliminates the effects of thermal emfs and
1/f noise, and allows the use of high-sensitivity null detec-
tors to provide resolution and reproducibility comparable
with those of a CCC bridge. Because the bridge is operated
at 1 Hz, however, a small correction ~about four parts in 109 )
is applied to account for the ac/dc difference in the 100 V
reference resistor used with the transportable QHE system.
This resistor, fitted into a small portable thermostated con-
tainer, is transported with the QHE system. The correction
for the ac/dc difference is determined by comparison with
the BIPM CCC bridge so that in effect the ac bridge is used
as a transfer instrument to relate onsite measurement results
to the BIPM CCC bridge. In addition to measuring R H (2) or
R H (4) with respect to a 100 V standard, the ac bridge is
capable of measuring 100/1 ratios and can be used to check
resistance scaling from 100 V to 10 kV or from 100 V to 1
V. For these checks a 1 V and a 10 kV standard resistor
~thermostated like the 100 V resistor! are included in the
equipment transported. Their resistance values are corrected
for ac/dc differences of 18 and 4.5 parts in 109 respectively.
The results of the three onsite QHR comparisons and
scaling checks are shown in Fig. 11. The other participants in
these comparisons were the Bureau National de Métrologie/
Laboratoire Central des Industries Electriques, ~BNM/LCIE!,
France,105 the Federal Office of Metrology, ~OFMET!,
Switzerland106 and the PTB.107 For measurements of a 100
V standard with respect to R H (2) the agreement between
each laboratory and the BIPM ranges from 21.2 parts in 109
to 0.9 parts in 109 , and in all cases the agreement lies within
the combined standard uncertainties estimated by the partici-
 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
FIG. 11. Results of three on-site comparisons of the three ratios, r, indicated
in the inset and including QHR measurements. Uncertainty bars represent
the total combined standard uncertainty.
pants. The uncertainty of these comparisons is an order of
magnitude smaller than those carried out with conventional
travelling resistors.
VIII. ac MEASUREMENTS OF THE QHR
A. Linking the QHR to capacitance standards
At present, the most active research area in QHR metrol-
ogy is the measurement of the QHR using ac at a frequency
near 10 000 rad/s ('1592 Hz!. The relative combined un-
certainty of the first accurate QHR measurements at this
frequency124 was 331026 and the relative random uncer-
tainty was 1.431027 . The technique was to use an ac bridge
with a 100/13 voltage ratio established by precision trans-
formers to measure R H (2) with respect to a 100 kV resistor
at 1592 Hz. Next, standard dc methods were used to compare
the QHR with a special 1 kV resistor for which the variation
of resistance with frequency is calculable.125 The 1 kV re-
sistance was then used to scale up to 100 kV in two 10/1
steps using a four terminal-pair divider bridge at 1592 Hz.
This completed a chain from ac to dc measurements of the
QHR, and clearly demonstrated that the QHR can be used as
a reproducible resistance standard at 1592 Hz. The same
group proposed using a quadrature bridge of the type men-
tioned in Sec. VI to measure R H (2) with respect to a stan-
dard capacitor. This would create a more direct link between
R K and the calculable capacitor. A parallel proposal is to
measure standard capacitors with respect to the QHR and, by
so doing, generalize the QHR to an impedance standard. This
technique would allow laboratories equipped with a QHR
standard to use it to disseminate capacitance calibrations that
are consistent with R K but, of course, not with the SI. ~That
relationship must still be established by the calculable ca-
pacitor.!
Two methods, or combinations of them, can be used to
link the QHR to capacitance standards. They are ~1! com-
pare, at dc, the QHR with a special resistor constructed so
that its resistance at 1592 Hz can be accurately related to its
dc resistance, or ~2! establish that the QHR can be used as an
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Thomas J. Witt 2839
accurate ac resistance standard. Method ~1! resembles that
already used in determinations of the ohm. The required re-
sistor is difficult to construct and its frequency behavior is
difficult to verify.126 Method ~2! is the object of much re-
search and although it poses many problems, as described in
the following paragraphs, significant progress has already
been made.
To measure the QHR at kilohertz frequencies with un-
certainties below a few parts in 107 calls for answers to at
least two basic questions; is the QHR sufficiently well de-
fined for ac work at these frequencies and how can it be
measured? Present theory does not explain Eq. ~6! and the
close correspondence between values of R K based on electri-
cal measurements and those derived from measurements of
the fundamental constants, or why the values of R K mea-
sured at dc are independent of most of the usual experimen-
tal parameters. Present theory offers even less help for un-
derstanding the ac measurements. One calculation,127 based
on a model that successfully explained electric field and cur-
rent distributions in QHR samples, predicts that, relative to
the dc QHR, no additional real components of the complex
Hall impedance should be expected in typical samples mea-
sured at 1592 Hz. Furthermore, the components of imped-
ance arising from sample capacitance and kinetic inductance
should be small relative to R H ~a few parts in 107 and a few
parts in 108 ) and in quadrature with the resistance.
B. Special precautions for ac measurements of the
QHR
Following the first accurate ac measurements, other mea-
surements of the QHR at kilohertz frequencies showed that
great care must be exercised in defining and measuring the ac
resistance. Deviations from the dc value of the QHR as a
function of frequency have been reported, some128 corre-
sponding to relative differences of several parts in 106 and
others below 2 parts in 107 at frequencies near 1592
Hz.129,130 These deviations from the dc value of the QHR
extrapolate to zero at zero frequency. Inevitably these mea-
surements determine the ratio of the QHR to that of a refer-
ence resistor having a small, imprecisely known frequency
dependence. Consequently, it is not clear to what degree the
frequency dependence of the ratio arises from the QHR
alone.
1. Defining the ac resistance
If the QHR is to be realized using ac, it is essential to
have a proper definition of the quantity being measured: it is
most important to ensure that the QHR is measured as a
four-terminal pair ~or its equivalent! as defined below. The
effects of electromagnetic coupling between elements of a
circuit and those of external circuits are minimized by using
coaxial shields and cables for the bridge circuits.131 If the
currents in the inner conductors are equal but opposite to
those in the outer shields of coaxial components, then no
magnetic fields are produced outside the components and
cables. There is then no inductive coupling between compo-
nents and they can be incorporated in circuits used for accu-
rate measurements and, particularly, in coaxial bridges. Re-
ciprocally, if equal and opposite currents flow in the inner
 2840 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998
FIG. 12. Schematic diagram illustrating the definition of a four-terminal-
pair impedance.
and outer parts of coaxially arranged conductors, stray exter-
nal magnetic fields produce no net induced currents. Special
transformers, called coaxial chokes or current equalizers,131
placed in the loops of the measurement network help ensure
that the opposing currents in the outer coaxial conductors are
nearly equal to those of the inner conductors so that suffi-
cient shielding is achieved.
If constructed and measured in conformity with the
definition132 of a four-terminal pair, an impedance is inde-
pendent of series contact impedances and stray shunt admit-
tances. The definition combines the elements of the usual
four terminal definition, which removes the influences of
contact impedances, with those of the shielding effect of a
coaxial geometry, which eliminates the effects of stray
shunting impedances to the outer shields. Figure 12 illus-
trates the definition of the four terminal pair impedance Z in
a coaxial enclosure. The series impedance in conductor pair
2 is z 2 and the shunt admittance of this pair is Y 2 . For
terminal-pair 3 the corresponding quantities are z 3 and Y 3 .
The series impedance and shunt admittance of conductor
pairs 1 and 4 do not influence the definition133 and, for sim-
plicity, are omitted; otherwise the notation follows that of
Cutkosky.129,134 Voltage e 1 is applied at terminal-pair 1 giv-
ing rise to current i 3 that leaves via the inner conductor and
returns without loss via the outer shield represented by heavy
lines. The definition requires that the potential across termi-
nal pair 4, e 4 , is zero and that no current flows from either
that pair (i 4 50) or pair 2 (i 2 50). The four-terminal pair
impedance is defined as Z 8 5e 2 /i 3 . Taking the heavy line as
the reference node, equations for the currents at the nodes
marked ‘‘n’’ in the figure give, noting that i 2 , i 4 and e 4 are
all zero, Z 8 5Z/ @ (11z 2 Y 2 )(11z 3 Y 3 ) # . With 1 m of 50 V
coaxial cable at 104 rad/s, z 2 Y 2 and z 3 Y 3 are about 1
31028 and can either be neglected or corrected.
Applying the four-terminal pair definition of impedance
to QHR measurements is not as simple as applying it to an
impedance at room temperature, particularly when a 3 He re-
frigerator is used. Coaxial cables into cryostats are long and,
to reduce heat losses, they use poor conductors of heat and,
therefore, of electricity. Using the dc equivalent circuit of a
QHR sample,135 a technique of multiple series connections
has been developed.129 This is a generalization of the tech-
nique which uses multiple links to connect series or parallel
combinations of QHR devices in a way such that the result-
ing resistance is not changed by series resistance in the links
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Thomas J. Witt
or contact resistance in the 2DEG samples.136 The multiple
series connection technique makes it possible to realize the
four-terminal pair definition despite large shunting capaci-
tance in the cables connected to the sample, capacitance be-
tween sample terminals and series inductance in the sample
terminals.
Further complications in the ac measurement of the
QHR come from the effective series inductance137 caused by
vibration, in the high magnetic field, of the thin ~50 m m!
current-carrying flexible wires which bond the sample to the
header.
2. Deformation of R H plateaus and increase in r xx at
kilohertz frequencies
Recent detailed studies129,130,138 show deformation of the
R H plateaus that is more pronounced at frequencies above
several hundred hertz. In high-resolution plots of R H vs B
measured at 700 Hz and 800 Hz, peaks have been observed
at the upper and lower edges of the i52 plateaus. These
appear to grow in amplitude and span a widening range of B
as the frequency increases, an effect which severely reduces
the useful width of the plateaus. Similarly, ac measurements
at kilohertz frequencies reveal a narrowing of the width of
the r xx plateau129,138,139 often accompanied by an increase in
the value of r xx above that measured at dc.
In spite of all of these problems, sufficiently flat regions
to allow reproducible measurements to be made have been
observed at 1.6 kHz on the i52 plateaus of two QHR
samples. For these regions the relative change of R H (2),
@ DR H (2)/R H (2) # '131028 . The values of R H (2) from
these two samples agree129 to within a relative uncertainty of
a few parts in 108 . In this case, the ratio of R H (2) to the
reference resistance changed by less than 231027 , a change
that may result mainly from the frequency dependence of
the reference resistor. As bridge methods already exist which
make it possible to step from such a reference resistor to
a bank of 10 pF standard capacitors with a relative uncer-
tainty below one part in 107 , it is now possible to calibrate
capacitance standards with respect to R K290 , without re-
course to dc measurements, with an accuracy of a few parts
in 107 .
The alternative method, that of using a reference resistor
with a well-known frequency dependence, has been used
since 1995 in the United Kingdom at the NPL.140
IX. TRENDS AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
Present trends in impedance metrology call for the much
wider use of QHR standards. Currently, more than a dozen
NMIs and at least one large industrial metrology
laboratory141 use the QHR as a practical standard. Recently,
commercial turnkey QHR standards have become available:
as a few have already been sold, the number of users is
certain to increase. This development comes at a time when
advanced manufacturing and service industries are showing
increased interest in quality. This interest is motivated by the
need for improvements in the characterization of physical
 Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 69, No. 8, August 1998 Thomas J. Witt 2841

1
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