Disorder-induced liquid-solid phase coexistence in 2D electron systems

Recent imaging experiments show a surprisingly robust regime of liquid-solid phase coexistence in a 2D electron system near the quantum melting/freezing transition, with the two phases mixed in mesoscopic domains. Strikingly, the experiments find no noticeable difference in electron density between the liquid and solid domains, which is at odds with both microemulsion scenarios and scenarios where fluctuations of a long-ranged disorder potential drive phase coexistence. Here, we show that random fluctuations of a short-ranged disorder potential can induce such phase coexistence without density difference. We further show that disorder tends to stabilize the Wigner Crystal phase to higher densities, which is also consistent with the experiment.