Metallic behaviour in SOI quantum wells with strong intervalley scattering

The fundamental properties of valleys are recently attracting growing attention due to electrons in new and topical materials possessing this degree-of-freedom and recent proposals for valleytronics devices. In silicon MOSFETs, the interest has a longer history since the valley degree of freedom had been identified as a key parameter in the observation of the controversial “metallic behaviour” in two dimensions. However, while it has been recently demonstrated that lifting valley degeneracy can destroy the metallic behaviour, little is known about the role of intervalley scattering. Here, we show that the metallic behaviour can be observed in the presence of strong intervalley scattering in silicon on insulator (SOI) quantum wells. Analysis of the conductivity in terms of quantum corrections reveals that interactions are much stronger in SOI than in conventional MOSFETs, leading to the metallic behaviour despite the strong intervalley scattering.