Experiments on ultraclean SiGe/Si/SiGe quantum wells established that a fully spin-polarized ("spinless") two-valley two-dimensional electron system still exhibits a genuine metal-insulator transition (MIT), with a critical density nc(B∗)n_c(B^*) about 1.2 times the zero-field value nc(0)n_c(0), in qualitative agreement with an interaction-based theoretical ratio of about 1.33. However, the microscopic basis of this transition remains unverified: the intervalley scattering rate has never been measured directly in these wells, the measured and predicted critical-density ratios have not been confronted at quantitative precision, the transition is inferred from extrapolation above 30 mK (and, in spin-polarizing fields, from data confined to T≤0.5 KT \leq 0.5\ \mathrm{K}), and the nonmonotonic perpendicular-field critical density remains unexplained. The problem is to supply the missing quantitative link between the observed nc(B)n_c(B) phase diagram and a microscopic mechanism.

Background

Whether a two-dimensional (2D) electron system can host a true metal-insulator transition (MIT) at zero magnetic field has been a central question of condensed-matter physics since scaling theory suggested that any amount of disorder localizes electrons in 2D. In strongly interacting 2D systems (rs≳10r_s \gtrsim 10, where rsr_s is the mean electron spacing measured in effective Bohr radii), experiments showed a sharp crossover from metallic to insulating behavior with decreasing density, and renormalization-group analyses of disordered, interacting electrons explained how interactions can stabilize a metallic phase (Abrahams, Kravchenko & Sarachik, Rev. Mod. Phys. 73, 251 (2001) — background context). The spin and valley degrees of freedom turn out to be decisive: Punnoose and Finkel'stein extended the renormalization-group theory to multi-valley systems and predicted that in single-valley 2D systems full spin polarization by an in-plane magnetic field B∥B_\parallel destroys the metallic state, while in two-valley systems the metallic state and the MIT survive even at full spin polarization ("spinless" electrons). A "valley" is a separate sheet of the Fermi surface arising because the silicon conduction-band minima sit at equivalent points of the Brillouin zone; in Si (001) quantum wells the two lowest valleys are almost degenerate. Intervalley scattering, with rate 1/τ⊥1/\tau_\perp, mixes the two valleys; if strong, it collapses the spectrum to an effective single valley at low temperature. In Si MOSFETs (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors), where rough interfaces generate strong short-range disorder, spinless electrons indeed become insulating under B∥≥B∗B_\parallel \geq B^* (Shashkin, Kravchenko & Klapwijk, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 266402 (2001)), consistent with strong intervalley mixing. In ultraclean SiGe/Si/SiGe quantum wells (peak mobility 240 m2/Vs240\ \mathrm{m^2/Vs}, short-range disorder about two orders of magnitude below the best Si MOSFETs), Melnikov et al. (Phys. Rev. B 99, 081106(R) (2019)) first established the zero-field MIT with nc(0)≈0.87×1010 cm−2n_c(0) \approx 0.87 \times 10^{10}\ \mathrm{cm^{-2}}, and Melnikov et al. (Phys. Rev. B 101, 045302 (2020)) then showed that in fully spin-polarizing parallel fields (B∗≈1B^* \approx 1–2 T2\ \mathrm{T}, determined by saturation of ρ(B∥)\rho(B_\parallel)) the metallic temperature dependence of the resistivity persists and two independent criteria — the sign change of dρ/dTd\rho/dT and the vanishing activation energy together with the vanishing nonlinearity threshold of the current-voltage characteristics on the insulating side — yield the same critical density nc(B∗)=(1.07n_c(B^*) = (1.07–1.11)×1010 cm−21.11) \times 10^{10}\ \mathrm{cm^{-2}}. This confirms a genuine MIT in a spinless two-valley system, the valley degree of freedom playing the same role for metallicity that spin plays in single-valley systems. Dolgopolov, Shashkin & Kravchenko (Phys. Rev. B 96, 075307 (2017)) calculated within an exchange-and-correlation (screening) approach that the ratio nc(B∗)/nc(0)n_c(B^*)/n_c(0) should be ≈1.33\approx 1.33, independent of the impurity density; the measured ratio of about 1.2 was described as consistent with this prediction within experimental uncertainty, but the ∼ ⁣10%\sim\!10\% discrepancy, the absence of any direct measurement of 1/τ⊥1/\tau_\perp in these wells, the restriction of the data to T≥0.03 KT \geq 0.03\ \mathrm{K} (and to T≤0.5 KT \leq 0.5\ \mathrm{K} for the temperature-dependent resistivity in spin-polarizing fields, so that T=0T = 0 is reached only by extrapolation), and the unexplained nonmonotonic nc(B⊥)n_c(B_\perp) dependence with its high-field slope corresponding to filling factor ν≡nshc/eB⊥≈0.3\nu \equiv n_s hc/eB_\perp \approx 0.3 (versus ≈0.5\approx 0.5 in Si MOSFETs), where nsn_s is the 2D electron density, all leave the quantitative microscopic picture open. Here ν\nu is the Landau-level filling factor, the number of carriers per flux quantum; the filling factor at which the critical density grows in the extreme quantum limit diagnoses how Landau quantization, interactions, and disorder jointly set the localization threshold.

Problem Statement

Establish a quantitative microscopic account of the metal-insulator transition in the fully spin-polarized (spinless) two-valley two-dimensional electron system in ultraclean SiGe/Si/SiGe quantum wells. The source experiment (Melnikov et al., Phys. Rev. B 101, 045302 (2020)) established the transition, but its microscopic basis remains unverified in the following respects: (a) the intervalley scattering rate 1/τ⊥1/\tau_\perp has never been measured directly in these quantum wells, so the assumed suppression of intervalley mixing — currently inferred only indirectly from the two-orders-of-magnitude-lower short-range disorder compared with Si MOSFETs — is not established microscopically; (b) the measured ratio nc(B∗)/nc(0)n_c(B^*)/n_c(0) of the critical densities for the MIT in the fully spin-polarized and unpolarized systems, about 1.2, was described in the source paper as consistent within experimental uncertainty with the interaction-based prediction ≈1.33\approx 1.33 (Dolgopolov et al., Phys. Rev. B 96, 075307 (2017)), but the two have not been confronted at a precision that would establish whether exchange-and-correlation screening quantitatively accounts for the parallel-field shift, or whether the residual ∼ ⁣10%\sim\!10\% gap is significant; (c) the zero-temperature phase boundary is known only by extrapolation: the temperature-dependent resistivity in spin-polarizing fields is restricted to T≤0.5 KT \leq 0.5\ \mathrm{K} (0.5 K being the highest temperature at which saturation of the spin polarization could still be achieved) and the data generally to T≥0.03 KT \geq 0.03\ \mathrm{K}, so the existence and location of the T=0T = 0 transition are not yet constrained by direct lower-temperature measurements; (d) the nonmonotonic dependence of the critical density on perpendicular magnetic field nc(B⊥)n_c(B_\perp), including the re-entrant minimum at filling factor ν=1\nu = 1 and the high-field slope approaching ν≈0.3\nu \approx 0.3, remains unexplained in terms of the interplay of Landau quantization, interactions, and disorder. The deliverable is a single theoretical account of this transition rather than four separate experimental programs: items (a) and (c) record experimental gaps that delimit what such an account must confront and that future measurements would test, whereas items (b) and (d) are theoretical sub-goals the account must address. The common objective uniting these open issues is to replace the present qualitative consistency between experiment and interaction-based theory by a quantitatively validated microscopic mechanism for the spinless two-valley MIT.

References

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