Anisotropic Two-Dimensional Disordered Wigner Solid
Abstract
The interplay between the Fermi sea anisotropy, electron-electron interaction, and localization phenomena can give rise to exotic many-body phases. An exciting example is an anisotropic two-dimensional (2D) Wigner solid (WS), where electrons form an ordered array with an anisotropic lattice structure. Such a state has eluded experiments up to now as its realization is extremely demanding: First, a WS entails very low densities where the Coulomb interaction dominates over the kinetic (Fermi) energy. Attaining such low densities while keeping the disorder low is very challenging. Second, the low-density requirement has to be fulfilled in a material that hosts an anisotropic Fermi sea. Here, we report transport measurements in a clean (low-disorder) 2D electron system with anisotropic effective mass and Fermi sea. The data reveal that at extremely low electron densities, when the rs parameter, the ratio of the Coulomb to the Fermi energy, exceeds ≃ 38, the current-voltage characteristics become strongly nonlinear at small dc biases. Several key features of the nonlinear characteristics, including their anisotropic voltage thresholds, are consistent with the formation of a disordered, anisotropic WS pinned by the ubiquitous disorder potential.
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF); Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1980302
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1876118
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FG02-00ER45841; DMR-2104771; ECCS-1906253; DMR-1709076; DMR-2011750; GBMF9615; DEFG02-00-ER45841
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 129; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 42 ENGINEERING; Physics; fractional quantum Hall effect; disordered systems; two-dimensional electron gas; Wigner crystal
Citation Formats
Hossain, Md S., Ma, M. K., Villegas-Rosales, K. A., Chung, Y. J., Pfeiffer, L. N., West, K. W., Baldwin, K. W., and Shayegan, M. Anisotropic Two-Dimensional Disordered Wigner Solid. United States: N. p., 2022.
Web. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.129.036601.
Hossain, Md S., Ma, M. K., Villegas-Rosales, K. A., Chung, Y. J., Pfeiffer, L. N., West, K. W., Baldwin, K. W., & Shayegan, M. Anisotropic Two-Dimensional Disordered Wigner Solid. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.129.036601
Hossain, Md S., Ma, M. K., Villegas-Rosales, K. A., Chung, Y. J., Pfeiffer, L. N., West, K. W., Baldwin, K. W., and Shayegan, M. Wed .
"Anisotropic Two-Dimensional Disordered Wigner Solid". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.129.036601. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1980302.
@article{osti_1980302,
title = {Anisotropic Two-Dimensional Disordered Wigner Solid},
author = {Hossain, Md S. and Ma, M. K. and Villegas-Rosales, K. A. and Chung, Y. J. and Pfeiffer, L. N. and West, K. W. and Baldwin, K. W. and Shayegan, M.},
abstractNote = {The interplay between the Fermi sea anisotropy, electron-electron interaction, and localization phenomena can give rise to exotic many-body phases. An exciting example is an anisotropic two-dimensional (2D) Wigner solid (WS), where electrons form an ordered array with an anisotropic lattice structure. Such a state has eluded experiments up to now as its realization is extremely demanding: First, a WS entails very low densities where the Coulomb interaction dominates over the kinetic (Fermi) energy. Attaining such low densities while keeping the disorder low is very challenging. Second, the low-density requirement has to be fulfilled in a material that hosts an anisotropic Fermi sea. Here, we report transport measurements in a clean (low-disorder) 2D electron system with anisotropic effective mass and Fermi sea. The data reveal that at extremely low electron densities, when the rs parameter, the ratio of the Coulomb to the Fermi energy, exceeds ≃ 38, the current-voltage characteristics become strongly nonlinear at small dc biases. Several key features of the nonlinear characteristics, including their anisotropic voltage thresholds, are consistent with the formation of a disordered, anisotropic WS pinned by the ubiquitous disorder potential.},
doi = {10.1103/physrevlett.129.036601},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
number = 3,
volume = 129,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Jul 13 00:00:00 EDT 2022},
month = {Wed Jul 13 00:00:00 EDT 2022}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Bloch ferromagnetism of composite fermions
journal, August 2020
- Hossain, Md Shafayat; Zhao, Tongzhou; Pu, Songyang
- Nature Physics, Vol. 17, Issue 1
Evidence for a fractional quantum Hall nematic state in parallel magnetic fields
journal, July 2013
- Liu, Yang; Hasdemir, S.; Shayegan, M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 88, Issue 3
Depinning, defect creation and quantum tunnelling
journal, August 1993
- Chui, S. T.
- Physics Letters A, Vol. 180, Issue 1-2
Wigner Crystallization and Metal-Insulator Transition of Two-Dimensional Holes in GaAs at
journal, February 1999
- Yoon, Jongsoo; Li, C. C.; Shahar, D.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 82, Issue 8
Emergent ferromagnetism near three-quarters filling in twisted bilayer graphene
journal, July 2019
- Sharpe, Aaron L.; Fox, Eli J.; Barnard, Arthur W.
- Science, Vol. 365, Issue 6453
Band mass anisotropy and the intrinsic metric of fractional quantum Hall systems
journal, April 2012
- Yang, Bo; Papić, Z.; Rezayi, E. H.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 85, Issue 16
Competition between fractional quantum Hall liquid and Wigner solid at small fillings: Role of layer thickness and Landau level mixing
journal, February 2021
- Villegas Rosales, K. A.; Singh, S. K.; Ma, Meng K.
- Physical Review Research, Vol. 3, Issue 1
Fractional quantum Hall effect in very-low-density GaAs/ As heterostructures
journal, April 1990
- Sajoto, T.; Suen, Y. W.; Engel, L. W.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 41, Issue 12
Evidence for two-dimentional quantum Wigner crystal
journal, October 1990
- Goldman, V. J.; Santos, M.; Shayegan, M.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 65, Issue 17
Two-dimensional Wigner crystal in anisotropic semiconductors
journal, June 2002
- Wan, Xin; Bhatt, R. N.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 65, Issue 23
Bilayer Wigner crystals in a transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructure
journal, June 2021
- Zhou, You; Sung, Jiho; Brutschea, Elise
- Nature, Vol. 595, Issue 7865
Electrical switching of magnetic order in an orbital Chern insulator
journal, November 2020
- Polshyn, H.; Zhu, J.; Kumar, M. A.
- Nature, Vol. 588, Issue 7836
NMR profiling of quantum electron solids in high magnetic fields
journal, July 2014
- Tiemann, L.; Rhone, T. D.; Shibata, N.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 10, Issue 9
Observation of spontaneous ferromagnetism in a two-dimensional electron system
journal, December 2020
- Hossain, M. S.; Ma, M. K.; Rosales, K. A. Villegas
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 117, Issue 51
Spontaneous Valley Polarization of Itinerant Electrons
journal, September 2021
- Hossain, Md. S.; Ma, M. K.; Villegas-Rosales, K. A.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 127, Issue 11
Unconventional Anisotropic Even-Denominator Fractional Quantum Hall State in a System with Mass Anisotropy
journal, December 2018
- Hossain, Md. Shafayat; Ma, Meng K.; Chung, Y. J.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 25
Effective field theory of fractional quantized Hall nematics
journal, November 2011
- Mulligan, Michael; Nayak, Chetan; Kachru, Shamit
- Physical Review B, Vol. 84, Issue 19
Crystallization in the Fractional Quantum Hall Regime Induced by Landau-Level Mixing
journal, September 2018
- Zhao, Jianyun; Zhang, Yuhe; Jain, J. K.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 11
Transference of transport anisotropy to composite fermions
journal, May 2010
- Gokmen, T.; Padmanabhan, Medini; Shayegan, M.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 6, Issue 8
Conduction threshold and pinning frequency of magnetically induced Wigner solid
journal, June 1991
- Williams, F. I. B.; Wright, P. A.; Clark, R. G.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 66, Issue 25
Multivalley two-dimensional electron system in an AlAs quantum well with mobility exceeding
journal, July 2018
- Chung, Yoon Jang; Villegas Rosales, K. A.; Deng, H.
- Physical Review Materials, Vol. 2, Issue 7
Correlation Energy and Spin Polarization in the 2D Electron Gas
journal, June 2002
- Attaccalite, Claudio; Moroni, Saverio; Gori-Giorgi, Paola
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 88, Issue 25
Competing correlated states around the zero-field Wigner crystallization transition of electrons in two dimensions
journal, December 2021
- Falson, J.; Sodemann, I.; Skinner, B.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 21, Issue 3
First-Order Magnetic Phase Transition of Mobile Electrons in Monolayer
journal, May 2020
- Roch, Jonas G.; Miserev, Dmitry; Froehlicher, Guillaume
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 124, Issue 18
Bemerkung zur Elektronentheorie des Ferromagnetismus und der elektrischen Leitf�higkeit
journal, July 1929
- Bloch, F.
- Zeitschrift f�r Physik, Vol. 57, Issue 7-8
Low-frequency noise in the reentrant insulating phase around the 1/5 fractional quantum Hall liquid
journal, September 1991
- Li, Yuan P.; Sajoto, T.; Engel, L. W.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 67, Issue 12
Signatures of Wigner crystal of electrons in a monolayer semiconductor
journal, June 2021
- Smoleński, Tomasz; Dolgirev, Pavel E.; Kuhlenkamp, Clemens
- Nature, Vol. 595, Issue 7865
Fermi contour anisotropy of GaAs electron-flux composite fermions in parallel magnetic fields
journal, February 2014
- Kamburov, D.; Mueed, M. A.; Shayegan, M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 89, Issue 8
Two-Dimensional Magnetotransport in the Extreme Quantum Limit
journal, May 1982
- Tsui, D. C.; Stormer, H. L.; Gossard, A. C.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 48, Issue 22
Ground state of the two-dimensional electron gas
journal, March 1989
- Tanatar, B.; Ceperley, D. M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 39, Issue 8
Low-density finite-temperature apparent insulating phase in two-dimensional semiconductor systems
journal, November 2003
- Das Sarma, S.; Hwang, E. H.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 68, Issue 19
Observation of a reentrant insulating phase near the 1/3 fractional quantum Hall liquid in a two-dimensional hole system
journal, February 1992
- Santos, M. B.; Suen, Y. W.; Shayegan, M.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 68, Issue 8
Novel magneto-optical behavior in the Wigner-solid regime
journal, February 1991
- Buhmann, H.; Joss, W.; von Klitzing, K.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 66, Issue 7
Melting of a 2D quantum electron solid in high magnetic field
journal, June 2006
- Chen, Yong P.; Sambandamurthy, G.; Wang, Z. H.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 2, Issue 7
Sharp tunnelling resonance from the vibrations of an electronic Wigner crystal
journal, December 2016
- Jang, Joonho; Hunt, Benjamin M.; Pfeiffer, Loren N.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 4
Discovery of an insulating ferromagnetic phase of electrons in two dimensions
journal, January 2021
- Kim, Kyung-Su; Kivelson, Steven A.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 118, Issue 2
Observation of an Anisotropic Wigner Crystal
journal, August 2016
- Liu, Yang; Hasdemir, S.; Pfeiffer, L. N.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 117, Issue 10
Commensurability Oscillations of Composite Fermions Induced by the Periodic Potential of a Wigner Crystal
journal, August 2016
- Deng, H.; Liu, Y.; Jo, I.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 117, Issue 9
Spin Susceptibility of an Ultra-Low-Density Two-Dimensional Electron System
journal, February 2003
- Zhu, J.; Stormer, H. L.; Pfeiffer, L. N.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 90, Issue 5
Effect of Landau-level mixing on quantum-liquid and solid states of two-dimensional hole systems
journal, November 1992
- Santos, M. B.; Jo, J.; Suen, Y. W.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 46, Issue 20
On the nature of the Hall insulator
journal, June 1997
- Shahar, D.; Tsui, D. C.; Shayegan, M.
- Solid State Communications, Vol. 102, Issue 11
Transference of Fermi Contour Anisotropy to Composite Fermions
journal, July 2017
- Jo, Insun; Rosales, K. A. Villegas; Mueed, M. A.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 119, Issue 1
High‐quality two‐dimensional electron system confined in an AlAs quantum well
journal, June 1993
- Lay, T. S.; Heremans, J. J.; Suen, Y. W.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 62, Issue 24
On the Interaction of Electrons in Metals
journal, December 1934
- Wigner, E.
- Physical Review, Vol. 46, Issue 11
Thermal and Quantum Melting Phase Diagrams for a Magnetic-Field-Induced Wigner Solid
journal, July 2020
- Ma, Meng K.; Villegas Rosales, K. A.; Deng, H.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 125, Issue 3
Quantum liquid versus electron solid around ν=1/5 Landau-level filling
journal, July 1990
- Jiang, H. W.; Willett, R. L.; Stormer, H. L.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 65, Issue 5
Observation of a Magnetically Induced Wigner Solid
journal, June 1988
- Andrei, E. Y.; Deville, G.; Glattli, D. C.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 60, Issue 26
Dynamics of the charge-density wave. I. Impurity pinning in a single chain
journal, January 1978
- Fukuyama, H.; Lee, P. A.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 17, Issue 2
Enhanced electron mobility and high order fractional quantum Hall states in AlAs quantum wells
journal, March 2002
- De Poortere, E. P.; Shkolnikov, Y. P.; Tutuc, E.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 80, Issue 9
Evidence for a fractionally quantized Hall state with anisotropic longitudinal transport
journal, October 2011
- Xia, Jing; Eisenstein, J. P.; Pfeiffer, L. N.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 7, Issue 11
Zero temperature magnetic phase diagram of Wigner crystal in anisotropic two-dimensional electron systems
journal, April 2008
- Zhou, Chenggang; Bhatt, Ravin N.
- Physica B: Condensed Matter, Vol. 403, Issue 5-9
Observation of a nematic quantum Hall liquid on the surface of bismuth
journal, October 2016
- Feldman, Benjamin E.; Randeria, Mallika T.; Gyenis, András
- Science, Vol. 354, Issue 6310
Composite Fermions with Tunable Fermi Contour Anisotropy
journal, May 2013
- Kamburov, D.; Liu, Yang; Shayegan, M.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 110, Issue 20
Probing the Melting of a Two-Dimensional Quantum Wigner Crystal via its Screening Efficiency
journal, March 2019
- Deng, H.; Pfeiffer, L. N.; West, K. W.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 122, Issue 11
Phase Diagram of the Low-Density Two-Dimensional Homogeneous Electron Gas
journal, March 2009
- Drummond, N. D.; Needs, R. J.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 102, Issue 12
Some static and dynamical properties of a two-dimensional Wigner crystal
journal, February 1977
- Bonsall, Lynn; Maradudin, A. A.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 15, Issue 4
Two-dimensional electrons occupying multiple valleys in AlAs
journal, November 2006
- Shayegan, M.; De Poortere, E. P.; Gunawan, O.
- physica status solidi (b), Vol. 243, Issue 14
Magneto-optical probe of two-dimensional electron liquid and solid phases
journal, September 1992
- Goldys, E. M.; Brown, S. A.; Dunford, R. B.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 46, Issue 12