Quantum Hall stripes with a reduced transport anisotropy at half-filled Landau levels in GaAs quantum wells*

It is well known that the hard (easy) resistance due to formation of quantum Hall stripes in high Landau levels of a two-dimensional electron gas exhibits a maximum (minimum) at half-integer filling factors. Here, we report the opposite behavior, namely a local minimum (maximum) in the hard (easy) resistance at half-filling. This talk will discuss our experimental observations in several samples including the temperature dependence of the resistance anisotropy and the response to the in-plane magnetic field applied parallel or perpendicular to the native stripes.