IMPURITY EFFECT ON THE 2-DIMENSIONAL ELECTRON FLUID-SOLID TRANSITION IN ZERO-FIELD

We investigate the effect of impurities on the electron fluid-solid transition with parameters appropriate for the system recently studied by Pudalov et al. The nature of the crystalline state at T=0 in the presence of impurities is studied with the relaxation technique. The solid-fluid transition is studied via perturbation calculation and Monte Carlo simulation. The transition density is found to shift from 37 for the pure system to 7.5, close to that observed experimentally. At this small value of rs, the fluid energy is sensitive to the spin polarization but the solid is not, suggesting possible interesting magnetic behavior. © 1995 The American Physical Society.