The metal-insulator transition (MIT) observed in two-dimensional (2D) systems is apparently contradictory to the well known scaling theory of localization. By investigating the conductance of disordered one-dimensional systems with a finite phase coherence length, we show that by changing the phase coherence length or the localization length, it is possible to observe the transition from insulator-like behavior to metal-like behavior, and the transition is a crossover between the quantum and classical regimes. The resemblance between our calculated results and the experimental findings of 2D MIT suggests that the observed metallic phase could be the result of a finite dephasing rate.

10 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. B63, Jan. 15, (2000)