Metal-insulator transition in a 2D electron gas: Equivalence of two approaches for determining the critical point

The critical electron density for the metal-insulator transition in a two-dimensional electron gas can be determined by two distinct methods: (i) a sign change of the temperature derivative of the resistance, and (ii) vanishing activation energy and vanishing nonlinearity of current-voltage characteristics as extrapolated from the insulating side. We find that in zero magnetic field (but not in the presence of a parallel magnetic field), both methods give equivalent results, adding support to the existence of a true zero-field metal-insulator transition.Comment: As publishe

Quantum Hall effect at low magnetic fields

The temperature and scale dependence of resistivities in the standard scaling theory of the integer quantum Hall effect is discussed. It is shown that recent experiments, claiming to observe a discrepancy with the global phase diagram of the quantum Hall effect, are in fact in agreement with the standard theory. The apparent low-field transition observed in the experiments is identified as a crossover due to weak localization and a strong reduction of the conductivity when Landau quantization becomes dominant.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, minor corrections, to appear in PR

Spin gap in the 2D electron system of GaAs/AlGaAs single heterojunctions in weak magnetic fields

We study the interaction-enhanced spin gaps in the two-dimensional electron gas confined in GaAs/AlGaAs single heterojunctions subjected to weak magnetic fields. The values are obtained from the chemical potential jumps measured by magnetocapacitance. The gap increase with parallel magnetic field indicates that the lowest-lying charged excitations are accompanied with a single spin flip at the odd-integer filling factor nu=1 and nu=3, in disagreement with the concept of skyrmions.Comment: as publishe

Indication of the ferromagnetic instability in a dilute two-dimensional electron system

The magnetic field B_c, in which the electrons become fully spin-polarized, is found to be proportional to the deviation of the electron density from the zero-field metal-insulator transition in a two-dimensional electron system in silicon. The tendency of B_c to vanish at a finite electron density suggests a ferromagnetic instability in this strongly correlated electron system.Comment: 4 pages, postscript figures included. Revised versio

Spin magnetization of strongly correlated electron gas confined in a two-dimensional finite lattice

The influence of disorder and interaction on the ground state polarization of the two-dimensional (2D) correlated electron gas is studied by numerical investigations of unrestricted Hartree-Fock equations. The ferromagnetic ground state is found to be plausible when the electron number is lowered and the interaction and disorder parameters are suitably chosen. For a finite system at constant electronic density the disorder induced spin polarization is cut off when the electron orbitals become strongly localized to the individual network sites. The fluctuations of the interaction matrix elements are calculated and brought out as favoring the ferromagnetic instability in the extended and weak localization regime. The localization effect of the Hubbard interaction term is discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figure

Phase Diagram of Integer Quantum Hall Effect

The phase diagram of integer quantum Hall effect is numerically determined in the tight-binding model, which can account for overall features of recently obtained experimental phase diagram. In particular, the quantum Hall plateaus are terminated by two distinct insulating phases, characterized by the Hall resistance with classic and quantized values, respectively, which is also in good agreement with experiments.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 4 PostScript figures; one new figure is added; minor modifications in the tex

The 2-D electron gas at arbitrary spin polarizations and arbitrary coupling strengths: Exchange-correlation energies, distribution functions and spin-polarized phases

We use a recent approach [Phys. Rev. Letters, {\bf 84}, 959 (2000)] for including Coulomb interactions in quantum systems via a classical mapping of the pair-distribution functions (PDFs) for a study of the 2-D electron gas. As in the 3-D case, the ``quantum temperature'' T_q of a classical 2-D Coulomb fluid which has the same correlation energy as the quantum fluid is determined as a function of the density parameter r_s. Spin-dependent exchange-correlation energies are reported. Comparisons of the spin-dependent pair-distributions and other calculated properties with any available 2-D quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) results show excellent agreement, strongly favouring more recent QMC data. The interesting novel physics brought to light by this study are: (a) the independently determined quantum-temperatures for 3-D and 2-D are found to be approximately the same, (i.e, universal) function of the classical coupling constant Gamma. (b) the coupling constant Gamma increases rapidly with r_s in 2-D, making it comparatively more coupled than in 3-D; the stronger coupling in 2-D requires bridge corrections to the hyper- netted-chain method which is adequate in 3-D; (c) the Helmholtz free energy of spin-polarized and unpolarized phases have been calculated. The existence of a spin-polarized 2-D liquid near r_s = 30, is found to be a marginal possibility. These results pertain to clean uniform 2-D electron systems.Comment: This paper replaces the cond-mat/0109228 submision; the new version include s more accurate numerical evaluation of the Helmholtz energies of the para- and ferromagentic 2D fluides at finite temperatures. (Paper accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett.

Absence of Scaling in the Integer Quantum Hall Effect

We have studied the conductivity peak in the transition region between the two lowest integer Quantum Hall states using transmission measurements of edge magnetoplasmons. The width of the transition region is found to increase linearly with frequency but remains finite when extrapolated to zero frequency and temperature. Contrary to prevalent theoretical pictures, our data does not show the scaling characteristics of critical phenomena.These results suggest that a different mechanism governs the transition in our experiment.Comment: Minor changes and new references include

Conductivity in quasi two-dimensional systems

The conductivity in quasi two-dimensional systems is calculated using the quantum kinetic equation. Linearizing the Lenard-Balescu collision integral with the extension to include external field dependences allows one to calculate the conductivity with diagrams beyond the GW approximation including maximally crossed lines. Consequently the weak localization correction as an interference effect appears here from the field dependence of the collision integral (the latter dependence sometimes called intra-collisional field effect). It is shown that this weak localization correction has the same origin as the Debye-Onsager relaxation effect in plasma physics. The approximation is applied to a system of quasi two-dimensional electrons in hetero-junctions which interact with charged and neutral impurities and the low temperature correction to the conductivity is calculated analytically. It turns out that the dynamical screening due to charged impurities leads to a linear temperature dependence, while the scattering from neutral impurities leads to the usual Fermi-liquid behavior. By considering an appropriate mass action law to determine the ratio of charged to neutral impurities we can describe the experimental metal-insulator transition at low temperatures as a Mott-Hubbard transition.Comment: 7 pages 7 pages appendix 11 figure

Absence of Floating Delocalized States in a Two-Dimensional Hole Gas

By tracking the delocalized states of the two-dimensional hole gas in a p-type GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure as a function of magnetic field, we mapped out a phase diagram in the density-magnetic-field plane. We found that the energy of the delocalized state from the lowest Landau level flattens out as the magnetic field tends toward zero. This finding is different from that for the two-dimensional electron system in an n-type GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure where delocalized states diverge in energy as B goes to zero indicating the presence of only localized states below the Fermi energy. The possible connection of this finding to the recently observed metal-insulator transition at B = 0 in the two-dimensional hole gas systems is discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 4 Postscript figures, To be published in Physical Review B (Rapid Communications) 58, Sept. 15, 199