We study the transport properties of pinned striped quantum Hall phases. We show that, under quite general assumptions, the macroscopic conductivity tensor satisfies a semicircle law. In particular, this result is valid for both smectic and nematic stripe phases, independent of the presence of topological and orientational defects such as dislocations and grain boundaries. As a special case, our results explain the experimental validity of a product rule for the dissipative part of the resistivity tensor, which was previously derived by MacDonald and Fisher (cond-mat/9907278) for a perfect stripe structure.

• Received 8 October 1999

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.2937