Connecting the Reentrant Insulating Phase and the Zero-Field Metal-Insulator Transition in a 2D Hole System

2011/09/24 by Richard L. J. Qiu, Xuan Gao, Xuan P. A. Gao +2 · 27 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Capacitance #Condensed matter physics #Electrical resistivity and conductivity #Electron #Insulator (electricity) #Magnetic field #Magnetic properties of thin films #Materials science #Metal #Metal–insulator transition #Phase transition #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum Hall effect #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum critical point #Quantum mechanics #Quantum phase transition #Reentrancy #Wigner crystal #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.str-el

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.108.106404

published in Physical Review Letters 108(10), 106404 (American Physical Society) · pdf with higher resolution figures and other related papers can be found at http://gaogroup.case.edu

arxiv created 2011/09/24 · openalex publication_date 2012/03/07 · arxiv updated 2012/03/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We present the transport and capacitance measurements of 10 nm wide GaAs quantum wells with hole densities around the critical point of the 2D metal-insulator transition (critical density p_c down to 0.8\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10¹⁰/cm², r_s\ensuremath∼36). For metallic hole density p_c<p<p_c+0.15\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10¹⁰/cm², a reentrant insulating phase (RIP) is observed between the \ensuremathν=1 quantum Hall state and the zero-field metallic state and it is attributed to the formation of pinned Wigner crystal. Through studying the evolution of the RIP versus 2D hole density, we show that the RIP is incompressible and continuously connected to the zero-field insulator, suggesting a similar origin for these two phases.

Citations

• Possible highT c superconductivity in the Ba?La?Cu?O system
• Degenerate versus semidegenerate transport in a correlated two-dimensional hole system
• Two-Dimensional Magnetotransport in the Extreme Quantum Limit
• Correlation Lengths of the Wigner-Crystal Order in a Two-Dimensional Electron System at High Magnetic Fields
• Temperature and Magnetic-Field-Enhanced Hall Slope of a Dilute 2D Hole System in the Ballistic Regime
• Two-Dimensional Metal in a Parallel Magnetic Field
• Magnetic-Field-Induced Insulating Phases at Largers
• Metallic behavior and related phenomena in two dimensions
• Phase Diagram of the Low-Density Two-Dimensional Homogeneous Electron Gas
• Scaling Theory of Localization: Absence of Quantum Diffusion in Two Dimensions
• Strongly Enhanced Hole-Phonon Coupling in the Metallic State of the Dilute Two-Dimensional Hole Gas