Anomalous field dependence of the Hall coefficient in disordered metals

E. Tousson*, Z. Ovadyahu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

We report on a comprehensive study of the Hall coefficient, RH, in disordered three-dimensional In2O3-x films as a function of the magnetic field strength, temperature, and degree of spatial disorder. Our main result is that, at sufficiently small fields, RH is virtually temperature, field, and disorder independent, even at the metal-insulator transition itself. On the other hand, at the limit of strong magnetic fields, RH has an explicit temperature dependence, in apparent agreement with the prediction of Altshuler, Aronov, and Lee. For intermediate values of fields, RH is field and temperature dependent. It is also shown that the behavior of the conductivity as a function of temperature, (T), at small fields, is qualitatively different than that measured at the limit of strong magnetic fields. The low- and high-field regimes seem to correlate with the respective regimes in terms of the Hall-coefficient behavior. It is suggested that the magnetotransport in the high-field limit is considerably influenced by Coulomb-correlation effects. However, in the low-field regime, where both correlations and weak-localization effects are, presumably, equally important (and where both theories are the more likely to be valid), is problematic; neither RH nor (T) gives any unambiguous evidence to the existence of interaction effects. This problem is discussed in light of the experimental results pertaining to the behavior of RH(T) in two-dimensional In2O3-x films as well as in other disordered systems. It is argued that, as far as RH is concerned, the effects of weak localization and Coulomb correlations may not be additive.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)12290-12297
Number of pages8
JournalPhysical Review B
Volume38
Issue number17
DOIs
StatePublished - 1988

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