No Arabic abstract
We report the observation of a re-entrant insulator--metal--insulator transition at B=0 in a two dimensional (2D) hole gas in GaAs at temperatures down to 30mK. At the lowest carrier densities the holes are strongly localised. As the carrier density is increased a metallic phase forms, with a clear transition at sigma = ~5e^2/h. Further increasing the density weakens the metallic behaviour, and eventually leads to the formation of a second insulating state for sigma > ~50e^2/h. In the limit of high carrier densities, where k_F.l is large and r_s is small, we thus recover the results of previous work on weakly interacting systems showing the absence of a metallic state in 2D.
In a recent Letter, Kravchenko et al. [cond-mat/9608101] have provided evidence for a metal-insulator transition (MIT) in a two-dimensional electron system (2DES) in Si metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). The transition observed in these samples occurs at relatively low electron densities $n_{s}sim (1-2)times 10^{11}cm^{-2}$ and high disorder $sigma_{c}sim e^{2}/2h$. We present evidence for a 2D MIT in a structure where the disorderis about two orders of magnitude weaker than in Si MOSFETs. The MIT occurs in the same range of $n_s$ Providing very strong evidence that the 2D MIT in Si-based devices is caused by electron-electron interactions.
Using symmetry breaking strain to tune the valley occupation of a two-dimensional (2D) electron system in an AlAs quantum well, together with an applied in-plane magnetic field to tune the spin polarization, we independently control the systems valley and spin degrees of freedom and map out a spin-valley phase diagram for the 2D metal-insulator transition. The insulating phase occurs in the quadrant where the system is both spin- and valley-polarized. This observation establishes the equivalent roles of spin and valley degrees of freedom in the 2D metal-insulator transition.
The pressure-induced insulator to metal transition (IMT) of layered magnetic nickel phosphorous tri-sulfide NiPS3 was studied in-situ under quasi-uniaxial conditions by means of electrical resistance (R) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements. This sluggish transition is shown to occur at 35 GPa. Transport measurements show no evidence of superconductivity to the lowest measured temperature (~ 2 K). The structure results presented here differ from earlier in-situ work that subjected the sample to a different pressure state, suggesting that in NiPS3 the phase stability fields are highly dependent on strain. It is suggested that careful control of the strain is essential when studying the electronic and magnetic properties of layered van der Waals solids.
Experimental results on the metal-insulator transition and related phenomena in strongly interacting two-dimensional electron systems are discussed. Special attention is given to recent results for the strongly enhanced spin susceptibility, effective mass, and thermopower in low-disordered silicon MOSFETs.
We have varied the disorder in a two-dimensional electron system in silicon by applying substrate bias. When the disorder becomes sufficiently low, we observe the emergence of the metallic phase, and find evidence for a metal-insulator transition (MIT): the single-parameter scaling of conductivity with temperature near a critical electron density. We obtain the scaling function $beta$, which determines the length (or temperature) dependence of the conductance. $beta$ is smooth and monotonic, and linear in the logarithm of the conductance near the MIT, in agreement with the scaling theory for interacting systems.