  The discovery of the fractional quantum Hall effect in GaAs-based
semiconductor devices has lead to new advances in condensed matter physics, in
particular the possibility for exotic, topological phases of matter that
possess fractional, and even non-Abelian, statistics of quasiparticles. One of
the main limitations of the experimental systems based on GaAs has been the
lack of tunability of the effective interactions between two-dimensional
electrons, which made it difficult to stabilize some of the more fragile
states, or induce phase transitions in a controlled manner. Here we review the
recent studies that have explored the effects of tunability of the interactions
offered by alternative two-dimensional systems, characterized by non-trivial
Berry phases and including graphene, bilayer graphene and topological
insulators. The tunability in these systems is achieved via external fields
that change the mass gap, or by screening via dielectric plate in the vicinity
of the device. Our study points to a number of different ways to manipulate the
effective interactions, and engineer phase transitions between quantum Hall
liquids and compressible states in a controlled manner.
