We report measurements of the interaction-induced quantum Hall effect in a spin-polarized AlAs two-dimensional electron system where the electrons occupy two in-plane conduction band valleys. Via the application of in-plane strain, we tune the energies of these valleys and measure the energy gap of the quantum Hall state at filling factor ν = 1. The gap has a finite value even at zero strain and, with strain, rises much faster than expected from a single-particle picture, suggesting that the lowest energy charged excitations at ν=1 are "valley Skyrmions".
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0505118,
title = {Observation of Quantum Hall Valley Skyrmions},
author = {Y. P. Shkolnikov and S. Misra and N. C. Bishop and E. P. De Poortere and M. Shayegan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0505118},
year = {2007}
}