Novel phenomena in dilute electron systems in two dimensions

Hydrodynamic description of transport in strongly correlated electron systems

We develop a hydrodynamic description of the resistivity and magnetoresistance of an electron liquid in a smooth disorder potential. This approach is valid when the electron-electron scattering length is sufficiently short. In a broad range of temperatures, the dissipation is dominated by heat fluxes in the electron fluid, and the resistivity is inversely proportional to the thermal conductivity, κ. This is in striking contrast to the Stokes flow, in which the resistance is independent of κ and proportional to the fluid viscosity. We also identify a new hydrodynamic mechanism of spin magnetoresistance.

Localization-delocalization transition in a two-dimensional quantum percolation model

We study the hopping transport of a quantum particle through randomly diluted percolation clusters in two dimensions realized both on the square and triangular lattices. We investigate the nature of localization of the particle by calculating the transmission coefficient as a function of energy ( -2<E<2 in units of the hopping integral in the tight-binding Hamiltonian) and disorder, q (probability that a given site of the lattice is not available to the particle). Our study based on finite-size scaling suggests the existence of delocalized states that depends on energy and the amount of disorder present in the system. For energies away from the band center (E=0) , delocalized states appear only at low disorder (q<15%) . The transmission near the band center is generally very small for any amount of disorder and therefore makes it difficult to locate the transition to delocalized states if any, but our study does indicate a behavior that is weaker than power-law localization. Apart from this localization-delocalization transition, we also find the existence of two different kinds of localization regimes depending on energy and the amount of disorder. For a given energy, states are exponentially localized for sufficiently high disorder. As the disorder decreases, states first show power-law localization before showing a delocalized behavior.

Coherent backscattering near the two-dimensional metal-insulator transition

We have studied corrections to conductivity due to the coherent backscattering in low-disordered two-dimensional electron systems in silicon for a range of electron densities including the vicinity of the metal-insulator transition, where the dramatic increase of the spin susceptibility has been observed earlier. We show that the corrections, which exist deeper in the metallic phase, weaken upon approaching the transition and practically vanish at the critical density, thus suggesting that the localization is suppressed near and at the transition even in zero field.

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.

Small-angle shubnikov-de haas measurements in a 2D electron system: the effect of a strong In-plane magnetic field

Measurements in magnetic fields applied at small angles relative to the electron plane in silicon MOSFETs indicate a factor of 2 increase of the frequency of Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations at H>H(sat). This signals the onset of full spin polarization above H(sat), the parallel field above which the resistivity saturates to a constant value. For H<H(sat), the phase of the second harmonic of the oscillations relative to the first is consistent with scattering events that depend on the overlap instead of the sum of the spin-up and spin-down densities of states. This unusual behavior may reflect the importance of many-body interactions.

Metallic low-temperature resistivity in a 2D electron system over an extended temperature range

We report measurements of the zero-field resistivity in a dilute 2D electron system in silicon at temperatures down to 35 mK. This extends the previously explored range of temperatures in this system by almost an order of magnitude. On the metallic side, the resistivity near the metal-insulator transition continues to decrease with decreasing temperature and shows no low-temperature upturn. At the critical electron density, the resistivity is found to be temperature independent in the entire temperature range from 35 mK to 1 K.