Crossover Between Weak Antilocalization and Weak Localization and Electron-Electron Interaction in Few-Layer WTe${}_2$

Abstract

We report electron transport studies in an encapsulated few-layer WTe${}_2$ at low temperatures and high magnetic fields. The magnetoconductance reveals a temperature-induced crossover between weak antilocalization (WAL) and weak localization (WL) in quantum diffusive regime. We show that the crossover clearly manifests coexistence and competition among several characteristic lengths, including the dephasing length, the spin-flip length, and the mean free path. In addition, low temperature conductance increases logarithmically with the increase of temperature indicating an interplay of electron-electron interaction (EEI) and spin-orbit coupling (SOC). We demonstrate the existences and quantify the strengths of EEI and SOC which are considered to be responsible for gap opening in the quantum spin hall state in WTe2 at the monolayer limit.

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