# Weak localization in the 2D metallic regime of Si-MOS

## I Introduction

Strong evidence for a metal-insulator transition (MIT) was observed in Si metal-oxid-semiconductor (MOS) structures  and other two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor systems . One of the most striking features of this phenomenon is a strong exponential drop of the resistivity $`\rho =\rho _0+\rho _1\mathrm{exp}((T_0/T)^q)`$ which saturates at low temperatures. According to scaling arguments for non-interacting 2D electron systems no such MIT was expected . However, for interacting 2D systems, theoretical evaluation showed that the MIT in 2D is not forbidden by basic arguments . Now the central question about the MIT in 2D concerns its origin. If electron-electron interaction is responsible for the strong decrease in resistivity, then quantum effects should dominate the metallic regime . If, on the other hand, the scattering mechanism across a spin gap  or the sharp crossover from quantum to classical transport  takes place, then the transport properties should not be dominated by quantum effects but should be rather explainable by the classical Boltzmann transport behavior.

We have thus investigated the negative magnetoresistance due to the weak-localization effect  in order to get information about the phase coherence time $`\tau _\phi `$ in a regime where possibly electron-electron interactions cause the anomalous metallic state. For carrier densities around the critical concentration $`n_c`$, conductivity corrections from single electron backscattering and interaction effects in the electron-electron and electron-hole channels overlap  and it is not possible to get an unambiguous value for the phase coherence time. Therefore our investigations were focused on the high carrier density regime with conductance $`g=\sigma /(e^2/h)`$ between 35 and 120, where the strong exponential drop in resistivity has shifted to higher temperatures and weak $`\mathrm{ln}(T)`$ terms with both, negative and positive sign dominate the behavior . In this regime, the negative magnetoresistance due to weak localization is restricted to a narrow range of magnetic fields and can be evaluated under the assumption that the interaction terms have only small influence on the negative magnetoresistance.

## II Measurements and discussion

Our investigations were performed on two high-mobility Si-MOS samples Si-43 and Si-15 with peak mobilities of $`\mu =20,000`$ and 32,000 cm<sup>2</sup>/Vs, respectively. The samples consist of 5 mm long and 0.8 mm wide Hall bars, covered with a 200 nm thick Si-Oxide layer serving as an insulator and a 1000 nm thick Al-gate on top. The resistivity and Hall measurements were performed in a four terminal ac-technique at a frequency of 19 Hz.

The magnetoresistivity measurements were performed on sample Si-43 at electron densities $`n`$ from $`5.4\times 10^{11}`$ to $`3.5\times 10^{12}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup> and temperatures $`T`$ between 0.29 and 10 K and on sample Si-15 for $`1.05\times 10^{12}<n<4.5\times 10^{12}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup> and $`0.3<T<1.4`$ K. In this density range, the conductance $`g`$ is between 35 and 120, which is just the region below the maximum metallic conductivity in these Si-MOS structures . The open circles in Fig. 1 represent the negative magnetoresistance $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho (B)=\rho _{xx}(B)\rho _{xx}(0)`$ at a density of $`n=1.05\times 10^{12}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup> at different temperatures for Si-15. The negative magnetoresistance was fitted to the single-electron weak localization correction to conductivity 

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _{xx}=\frac{\alpha g_\nu e^2}{2\pi ^2\mathrm{}}\left[\mathrm{\Psi }\left(\frac{1}{2}+\frac{\mathrm{}}{4eBD\tau }\right)\mathrm{\Psi }\left(\frac{1}{2}+\frac{\mathrm{}}{4eBD\tau _\phi }\right)\right],$$
(1)   
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is the Digamma function, $`B`$ is the applied perpendicular magnetic field, $`D`$ the diffusion coefficient and $`\tau `$ the momentum relaxation time. The values for $`D`$ and $`\tau `$ were deduced from the temperature and density dependent Hall and resistivity measurements. The prefactor $`g_\nu `$ describes the valley degeneracy and $`\alpha `$ depends, according to theory , on the ratio of intra-valley to inter-valley scattering rates and should be between 0.5 and 1. We found values between 0.5 and 0.6 for $`\alpha `$, which is in the expected range. The full lines in Fig. 1 represent the best least square fits through the data points according to Eq. 1 for the different temperatures.

The influence of stray magnetic fields was tested by carefully shielding the sample together with a copper coil by a $`\mu `$-metal foil for temperatures down to 100 mK. As no influence was observed, we conclude that the width and height of the weak localization peak is not disturbed by any background magnetic fields. We also have not seen any sign for a superconducting state of the 2D electron gas which might be disturbed by very small magnetic fields.

In Fig. 2, the temperature dependence of the phase coherence time $`\tau _\phi `$ is shown for several carrier densities in the range from $`5.4\times 10^{11}`$ to $`3.5\times 10^{12}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup> for Si-43. It is found that $`\tau _\phi `$ increases by about a factor of 100 from 1 ps at 10 K to nearly 100 ps at 0.29 K. Similar values for $`\tau _\phi `$ were also reported for earlier investigations on Si-MOS structures . The increase of $`\tau _\phi `$ can be described approximately by a power law $`\tau _\phi T^p`$. At higher temperatures, large momentum transfer processes dominate the electron-electron scattering and $`p=2`$ is expected, whereas at low temperatures, small momentum transfer dominates in disordered systems even for $`k_F\mathrm{}1`$ and cause $`p=1`$ .

According to the data in Fig. 2, $`p`$ is decreasing slightly from 1.4 above 4 K to 1.3 below 1 K for the lowest density, whereas $`p`$ shows a strong change from 1.5 towards 0.5 in the same temperature interval for the highest density. The latter value of 0.5 can not be explained by theory and the strong change in the slope of Fig. 2 indicates rather a saturation of the phase coherence time below 0.3 K. Such a saturation of $`\tau _\phi `$ can be caused by electron heating effects due to high frequency noise or by other processes which limit the height of the weak localization effect. According to Hikami et al. , such a limitation can be caused by spin scattering due to magnetic impurities or spin-orbit interaction. From the additional terms for spin scattering and spin-orbit scattering, which enter (1), such a limiting scattering time can be estimated to be around 200 ps. But from the available data no definite conclusion about the process, which limits $`\tau _\phi `$, can be drawn.

In the temperature range where $`\tau _\phi `$ increases by about a factor 100, the resistivity of the sample is nearly constant. Especially for the highest density of $`n=3.5\times 10^{12}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup>, the exponentially strong changes in the conductivity, which where observed below 1 K for densities near the MIT, have shifted to temperatures above 10 K. Only weak changes $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho \mathrm{ln}(T)`$ remain at small $`T`$  despite the strong increase of $`\tau _\phi `$.

The dependence of $`\tau _\phi `$ on the carrier concentration is depicted in Fig. 3. For temperatures in the range from 1 to 10.7 K, $`\tau _\phi `$ increases with increasing carrier concentration. Below $`n=1\times 10^{12}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup>, this increase is steep, whereas for higher densities the increase becomes smaller. At a temperature of 0.29 K, $`\tau _\phi `$ increases as well below $`n=1\times 10^{12}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup>, but decreases slightly for higher concentrations. This abnormal behavior at 0.29 K can be assigned to the observed saturation of $`\tau _\phi `$ in the temperature dependence for higher densities as described above. The same investigations for sample Si-15 showed a very similar behavior of the phase coherence time $`\tau _\phi `$ with saturation effects near $`T=0.3K`$.

In Fig. 3 the momentum relaxation time $`\tau `$ is shown for comparison. It was calculated from the conductivity $`\sigma `$ at $`B=0`$ as $`\tau =m^{}\sigma /ne^2`$ with $`m^{}=0.19m_0`$ the transversal effective mass and $`n`$ the carrier density as derived from the Hall coefficient $`R_H`$. As the magnetoresisitivity due to weak localization is a very small effect ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma /\sigma 10^3`$), there is practically no difference whether $`\tau `$ is calculated at $`B=0`$ or at $`B>\mathrm{\Phi }_0/\mathrm{}_\phi ^2`$. From Fig. 3, it can be seen that the overall behavior of $`\tau _\phi `$ and $`\tau `$ is quite different and independent of each other. This can be understood by the different underlying scattering mechanisms for inelastic and elastic processes. The elastic processes are due to impurity and surface roughness scattering whereas the inelastic processes are caused by electron-phonon and electron-electron scattering.

It should be noted that we observe a negative magnetoresistance within $`\pm 50`$ Gauss despite the fact that there is a superconducting Al-gate on top of the Si-MOS structures. Bulk Al is a type I superconductor with a critical superconducting temperature of $`T_c=1.175`$ K and a critical magnetic field of $`H_c=105`$ G. We have tested the superconductivity of our Al-gate directly by performing a fore-wire resistance measurement. We found a sudden decrease of the resistivity to zero at a temperature of 1.20 K. At 0.29 K, the zero-resistivity could be quenched by an external magnetic field of 51 G. The deviation of this field from $`H_c`$ is caused by the intermediate state which has a finite resitivity when the superconducting regions are not connected any more . In addition, the superconducting properties may be modified as the Al-gate consists of a thin evaporated layer which is expected to be strongly disordered.

The effect of a superconducting gate on the weak localization was treated in detail by Rammer and Shelankov . At magnetic fields below $`H_c`$, the magnetic flux is collected in the flux tubes of the intermediate state. At the position of the 2D electron gas, 200 nm away from the superconducting gate, the nonuniformity of the magnetic field persists only if the period of the magnetic structure is larger than this distance. The characteristic lateral size of the domains in the intermediate state can be estimated from the laminar model . For pure Al, one gets a period $`a`$ of about 300 nm, whereas for a strongly disordered material a period of rather 80 nm is expected. This domain period has to be compared with the phase coherence length $`\mathrm{}_\phi =\sqrt{D\tau _\phi }`$, with $`D`$ the diffusion coefficient. From our investigations it follows that $`\mathrm{}_\phi `$ is in the range from 600 to 1000 nm at temperatures below $`T_c=1.2`$ K. As this range of values is much larger than the typical domain period $`a`$, no influence of the superconducting gate on the negative magnetoresistivity is expected . This is in agreement with our measurements, where we have observed no direct influence.

## III Conclusions

We have investigated the weak localization in the metallic regime of Si-MOS structures at high carrier density where the conductance is between 35 and 120 $`e^2/h`$. When decreasing the temperature from 10 to 0.29 K, the phase coherence time $`\tau _\phi `$ increases from 2 to about 100 ps enabling in principle strong quantum effects to take place. Nevertheless, only weak $`\mathrm{ln}(T)`$ type changes of the conductivity were observed from 10 K where the phase coherence is as short as the momentum relaxation time down to 0.29 K where $`\tau _\phi `$ is about 100 times larger. We thus conclude that in the investigated high conductance regime no strong quantum effects due to electron-electron interaction take place which could drive the system into the metallic state. From saturation effects of $`\tau _\phi `$, we can estimate a lower boundary for the spin-orbit interaction scattering time of about 200 ps.

The work was supported by RFBR, by the Programs on ”Physics of solid-state nanostructures” and ”Statistical physics”, by INTAS, by NWO, by the ”Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaften” P-13439 and GME Austria, and by KBN (Grant No 2-P03B-11914) Poland.