Metal-insulator transitions in two dimensions at zero magnetic field in a p-type gallium arsenide heterostructure

Presented in this work is a comparative study of two different two dimensional systems in GaAs heterostructures. In the two dimensional hole system, electron-electron interactions are strong and possibly the reason for an anomolous temperature dependence in the resistivity that is reminiscent of metallic behavior which is known not to exist in a non-interacting two dimensional Fermi gas. The other system is an electron system where interactions are much weaker and whose properties have been understood in the context of Fermi liquid theory.; In the first set of experiments, the delocalized states of the two dimensional hole system in a p-type GaAs heterostructure are tracked in density-magnetic field parameter space to find qualitatively very different behavior from what is found in the weakly interacting electron system. The lowest delocalized state which corresponds to the lowest Landau level in high magnetic fields, is found to float up in energy as the magnetic field is reduced to zero for the electron system. We found that there is an absence of this floating for the hole system and discuss this in the context of the recently discovered metal-insulator transition at B = 0.; We further investigate the high temperature properties of the hole system by analyzing the resistivity to temperatures as high as 120 K to see how well the strongly interacting hole system fits what is expected from acoustic and optical phonon scattering. This is done over a wide range of densities and temperatures so that we could understand what sort of temperature dependence is truly considered anomolous in low temperatures.; Finally, the compressibility of both systems is studied. An unequivocal signature for a phase transition is found in the compressibility measurements for the hole system with a temperature independent crossing point in the resistance of the gas occurring at the minimum of the inverse compressibility signal as a function of density (disorder). Differences in the way the compressibilities of the two systems go to zero at low densities is examined. The evolution of the compressibility in a magnetic field is studied in the hole system and compared to what one expects from transport measurements. The magnetic field studies show an evolution between the Hall insulator to quantum Hall liquid transition at high fields to the transition at B = 0 which is being called the metal to insulator transition.