Electrochemical Capacitance and Transit Time in Quantum Hall Conductors

In a two dimensional electron gas, low energy transport in presence of a magnetic field occurs in chiral 1D channels located on the edge of the sample. In the AC description of quantum transport, the emittance determines the amplitude of the imaginary part of the admittance, whose sign and physical meaning are determined by the sample topology: a Hall bar is inductive while a Corbino ring is capacitive. In this article, the perfect capacitive character of Corbino samples in the quantum Hall effect regime is shown. A vanishing conductance and an electrochemical capacitance which depends on the density of states of 1D channels are measured. Our samples have no gate, neither on the side nor on the top, and the inner capacitances are measured. The transit time of electrons across the device is obtained and the drift velocity of carriers is deduced.