High Conductance 2D Transport around the Hall Mobility Peak in Electrolyte-Gated Rubrene Crystals

We report the observation of the Hall effect at hole densities up to 6×10¹³ cm⁻² (0.3  holes/molecule) on the surface of electrolyte-gated rubrene crystals. The perplexing peak in the conductance as a function of gate voltage is confirmed to result from a maximum in mobility, which reaches 4  cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ at 2.5×10¹³ cm⁻². Measurements to liquid helium temperatures reveal that this peak is markedly asymmetric, with bandlike and hopping-type transport occurring on the low density side, while unconventional, likely electrostatic-disorder-affected transport dominates the high density side. Most significantly, near the mobility peak the temperature coefficient of the resistance remains positive to as low as 120 K, the low temperature resistance becomes weakly temperature dependent, and the conductance reaches within a factor of 2 of e²/h, revealing conduction unprecedentedly close to a two-dimensional metallic state.