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arXiv · 1208.2285

Evidence of Novel Quasiparticles in a Strongly Interacting Two-Dimensional Electron System: Giant Thermopower and Metallic Behaviour

Abstract

We report thermopower ($S$) and electrical resistivity ($\rho_{2DES}$) measurements in low-density (10$^{14}$ m$^{-2}$), mesoscopic two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs) in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures at sub-Kelvin temperatures. We observe at temperatures $\lesssim$ 0.7 K a linearly growing $S$ as a function of temperature indicating metal-like behaviour. Interestingly this metallicity is not Drude-like, showing several unusual characteristics: i) the magnitude of $S$ exceeds the Mott prediction valid for non-interacting metallic 2DESs at similar carrier densities by over two orders of magnitude; and ii) $\rho_{2DES}$ in this regime is two orders of magnitude greater than the quantum of resistance $h/e^2$ and shows very little temperature-dependence. We provide evidence suggesting that these observations arise due to the formation of novel quasiparticles in the 2DES that are not electron-like. Finally, $\rho_{2DES}$ and $S$ show an intriguing decoupling in their density-dependence, the latter showing striking oscillations and even sign changes that are completely absent in the resistivity.

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Vijay Narayan, M. Pepper, J. Griffths, H. Beere, F. Sfigakis, G. Jones, D. Ritchie, A. Ghosh. 2012-08-10. Evidence of Novel Quasiparticles in a Strongly Interacting Two-Dimensional Electron System: Giant Thermopower and Metallic Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-012-0718-0

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