Impact of short-range scattering on the metallic transport of strongly correlated two-dimensional holes in GaAs quantum wells

Understanding the nonmonotonic behavior in the temperature dependent resistance R(T) of strongly correlated two-dimensional (2D) carriers in clean semiconductors has been a central issue in the studies of 2D metallic states and metal-insulator transitions. We have studied the transport of high mobility 2D holes in 20-nm-wide GaAs quantum wells with varying short-range disorder strength by changing the Al fraction x in the AlxGa1-xAs barrier. Via varying the short-range interface roughness and alloy scattering, it is observed that increasing x suppresses both the strength and characteristic temperature scale of the 2D metallicity, pointing to the distinct role of short-range vs long-range disorder in the 2D metallic transport in this correlated 2D hole system with interaction parameter r(s) similar to 20