Dilute metals at high magnetic field
Benoît Fauqué
CNRS, Collège de France, Université PSL
Many-body electronic phases can be induced by a magnetic field in dilute fermionic systems. This is the case when all the charge carriers of a Fermi sea are confined in the lowest Landau level, the so-called quantum limit. In this presentation I will discuss the behaviour of charge carriers of two distinct electronic systems in their quantum limit regime: graphite (a semi-metal) and InAs (a narrow gap semi-conductor). I will show that in both cases, the magnetic field drastically affects their electronic and thermodynamic properties, but in a different way. In graphite, the magnetic field induces a succession a thermodynamic phase transitions (thought to be driven by the electron-electron interactions), while in InAs the magnetic field induces a metal-insulator transition (due to localization effects by the magnetic field) accompanied by a colossal thermo-electric response. The comparison of both systems points to the existence of distinct edge states and shows the rich variety of electronic properties that can be found in the quantum limit of 3D metals.
All interested persons are invited to attend remotely—email physics@nd.edu for information.
Originally published at physics.nd.edu.