Thermopower of Interacting GaAs Bilayer Hole Systems in the Reentrant Insulating Phase near $\nu=1$

Abstract

We report thermopower measurements of interacting GaAs bilayer hole systems. When the carrier densities in the two layers are equal, these systems exhibit a reentrant insulating phase near the quantum Hall state at total filling factor $\nu=1$. Our data show that as the temperature is decreased, the thermopower diverges in the insulating phase. This behavior indicates the opening of an energy gap at low temperature, consistent with the formation of a pinned Wigner solid. We extract an energy gap and a Wigner solid melting phase diagram.