Observation of an electronic microemulsion phase emerging from a quantum crystal-to-liquid transition

Abstract

Strongly interacting electronic systems possess rich phase diagrams resulting from the competition between different quantum ground states. A general mechanism that relieves this frustration is the emergence of microemulsion phases, where regions of different phase self-organize across multiple length scales. The experimental characterization of these phases often poses significant challenges, as the long-range Coulomb interaction microscopically mingles the competing states. Here, we use cryogenic reflectance and magneto-optical spectroscopy to observe the signatures of the mixed state between an electronic Wigner crystal and an electron liquid in a MoSe2 monolayer. We find that the transit into this 'microemulsion' state is marked by anomalies in exciton reflectance, spin susceptibility, and Umklapp scattering, establishing it as a distinct phase of electronic matter. Our study of the two-dimensional electronic microemulsion phase elucidates the physics of novel correlated electron states with strong Coulomb interactions.

References in corpus (37)

• Colossal Magnetoresistant Materials: The Key Role of Phase Separation
• Optical detection of Mott and generalized Wigner crystal states in WSe2/WS2 moiré superlattices
• Abundance of correlated insulating states at fractional fillings of WSe${}_2$/WS${}_2$ moiré superlattices
• Possible Metal/Insulator Transition at B=0 in Two Dimensions
• High-temperature superfluidity with indirect excitons in van der Waals heterostructures
• Quantum Theory of a Nematic Fermi Fluid
• Cascade of Phase Transitions and Dirac Revivals in Magic Angle Graphene
• Correlation energy and spin polarization in the 2D electron gas
• Metal-insulator transition in two-dimensional electron systems
• Signatures of bilayer Wigner crystals in a transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructure
• Observation of Wigner crystal of electrons in a monolayer semiconductor
• Entropic evidence for a Pomeranchuk effect in magic angle graphene
• Wigner crystallization and metal-insulator transition of two-dimensional holes in GaAs/AlGaAs at B=0
• Phase Diagram of the Low-Density Two-Dimensional Homogeneous Electron Gas
• Universal Aspects of Coulomb Frustrated Phase Separation
• Giant paramagnetism induced valley polarization of electrons in charge-tunable monolayer MoSe2
• Wigner Glass, Spin-liquids, and the Metal-Insulator Transition
• Phase separation in the two-dimensional electron liquid in MOSFETs
• Phase separation frustrated by the long range Coulomb interaction I: Theory
• Electron-exciton interactions in the exciton-polaron problem
• Hexatic and mesoscopic phases in the 2D quantum Coulomb system
• Competing correlated states around the zero field Wigner crystallization transition of electrons in two-dimensions
• Anomalously large capacitance of a plane capacitor with a two-dimensional electron gas
• Charge-order-enhanced capacitance in semiconductor moiré superlattices
• Electronic phase separation: recent progress in the old problem
• Phase separation frustrated by the long range Coulomb interaction II: Applications
• Frustrated phase separation in two-dimensional charged systems
• Anisotropic, two-dimensional, disordered Wigner solid
• Recent developments in the field of the metal-insulator transition in two dimensions
• Phase transition beneath the superconducting dome in BaFe${}_2$(As${}_{1-x}$P${}_x$)${}_2$
• Interstitial-induced ferromagnetism in a two-dimensional Wigner crystal
• Wigner Crystals in Two-Dimensional Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides: Spin Physics and Readout
• Probing spin susceptibility of a correlated two-dimensional electron system by transport and magnetization measurements
• Density-tuned effective metal-insulator transitions in 2D semiconductor layers: Anderson localization or Wigner crystallization
• Emergence of a spin microemulsion in spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates
• Chemical potential and compressibility of quantum Hall bilayer excitons
• Upper bound on the window of density occupied by microemulsion phases in two-dimensional electron systems

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Optical signatures of interlayer electron coherence in a bilayer semiconductor
• Critical gate distance for Wigner crystallization in the two-dimensional electron gas
• Magnetism of the Bilayer Wigner Crystal
• Wideband covariance magnetometry below the diffraction limit
• Impact of an electron Wigner crystal on exciton propagation
• Defect liquids in a weakly imbalanced bilayer Wigner Crystal
• Exchange Interactions of a Wigner Crystal in a Magnetic Field and Berry Curvature: Multi-Particle Tunneling through Complex Trajectories
• Spin-triplet paired Wigner crystal stabilized by quantum geometry
• Elementary Excitations, Melting Temperature, and Correlation Energy in Wigner Crystals
• Quantum melting a Wigner crystal into Hall liquids
• Exciton interacting with the phonons of an electronic Wigner crystal
• Defects in Wigner crystals: fracton-elasticity duality and vacancy proliferation