Phase transition from a composite fermion liquid to a Wigner solid in the lowest Landau level of ZnO

Abstract

Interactions between the constituents of a condensed matter system can drive it through a plethora of different phases due to many-body effects. A prominent platform for this type of behavior is a two-dimensional electron system in a magnetic field, which evolves intricately through various gaseous, liquid and solids phases governed by Coulomb interaction. Here we report on the experimental observation of a phase transition between the Laughlin liquid of composite fermions and the adjacent insulating phase of a magnetic field-induced Wigner solid. The experiments are performed in the lowest Landau level of a MgZnO/ZnO two-dimensional electron system with attributes of both a liquid and a solid. An in-plane magnetic field component applied on top of the perpendicular magnetic field extends the Wigner phase further into the liquid phase region. Our observations indicate the direct competition between a Wigner solid and a Laughlin liquid both formed by composite particles rather than bare electrons.

11 pages, 4 figures, Supplementary Information available upon request

References in corpus (10)

• Sharp Tunneling Resonance from the Vibrations of an Electronic Wigner Crystal
• Composite fermi liquids in the lowest Landau level
• Microscopic verification of topological electron-vortex binding in the lowest-Landau-level crystal state
• Observation of pinning mode in Wigner solid of 1/3 fractional quantum Hall excitations
• Hamiltonian Theory of the Composite Fermion Wigner Crystal
• Logarithmic temperature dependence of conductivity at half-integer filling factors: Evidence for interaction between composite fermions
• Temperature dependent magnetotransport around $\nu$= 1/2 in ZnO heterostructures
• Insulating phase of a two-dimensional electron gas in MgZnO/ZnO heterostructure below nu = 1/3
• Wigner Crystallization in a Quasi-3D Electronic System
• Static and Dynamic Properties of Type-II Composite Fermion Wigner Crystals

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Berry phase of the composite-fermion Fermi Sea: Effect of Landau-level mixing