DC Transformer and DC Josephson(-like) Effects in Quantum Hall Bilayers

In the early days of superconductivity, Ivar Giaver discovered that it was possible to make a novel DC transformer by using one superconductor to drag vortices through another. An analogous effect was predicted to exist in quantum Hall bilayers and has recently been discovered experimentally by Eisenstein’s group at Caltech. Similarly, new experiments from the Caltech group have demonstrated the existence of a Josephson-like ‘supercurrent’ branch for electrons coherently tunnelling between the two layers.