Effective mass and Landé g-factor in Si-MOSFETs near the critical density

Abstract

We analyze the electrical resistivity and conductivity of a dilute two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in a Si metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor. When a magnetic field is applied parallel to the plane of the 2DEG, a signature of complete spin polarization, as evidenced by the saturation of the resistivity, is observed. We measured the effective mass and the Landé g-factor near the metal-insulator transition (MIT) and found that the Landé g-factor remained almost constant and close to its value in bulk silicon. In contrast, we have observed a sharp increase in the effective mass near the critical density of the MIT. Our new results suggest that the sharp increase in the previously-observed spin susceptibility is mainly due to the enhanced effective mass. Therefore, renormalization of the effective mass could play an important role in a dilute spinpolarized 2DEG. The data indicate that electron-electron interactions strongly modify the effective mass but only weakly affect the g-factor in a dilute 2DEG. Moreover, our results indicate that B _c , which corresponds to the magnetic field at which the magnetoresistivity reaches saturation, vanishes at a characteristic density n _χ higher than the critical density n _c of the MIT. This is in contrast to the existing experimental results, and further studies are required if this discrepancy is to be understood.