No Arabic abstract
In a graphene Landau level (LL), strong Coulomb interactions and the fourfold spin/valley degeneracy lead to an approximate SU(4) isospin symmetry. At partial filling, exchange interactions can spontaneously break this symmetry, manifesting as additional integer quantum Hall plateaus outside the normal sequence. Here we report the observation of a large number of these quantum Hall isospin ferromagnetic (QHIFM) states, which we classify according to their real spin structure using temperature-dependent tilted field magnetotransport. The large measured activation gaps confirm the Coulomb origin of the broken symmetry states, but the order is strongly dependent on LL index. In the high energy LLs, the Zeeman effect is the dominant aligning field, leading to real spin ferromagnets with Skyrmionic excitations at half filling, whereas in the `relativistic zero energy LL, lattice scale anisotropies drive the system to a spin unpolarized state, likely a charge- or spin-density wave.
We have measured the magneto-resistance of freely suspended high-mobility bilayer graphene. For magnetic fields $B>1$ T we observe the opening of a field induced gap at the charge neutrality point characterized by a diverging resistance. For higher fields the eight-fold degenerated lowest Landau level lifts completely. Both the sequence of this symmetry breaking and the strong transition of the gap-size point to a ferromagnetic nature of the insulating phase developing at the charge neutrality point.
Graphene is a very promising test-bed for the field of electron quantum optics. However, a fully tunable and coherent electronic beam splitter is still missing. We report the demonstration of electronic beam splitters in graphene that couple quantum Hall edge channels having opposite valley polarizations. The electronic transmission of our beam splitters can be tuned from zero to near unity. By independently setting the beam splitters at the two corners of a graphene PN junction to intermediate transmissions, we realize a fully tunable electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer. This tunability allows us to unambiguously identify the quantum interferences due to the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, and to study their dependence with the beam-splitter transmission and the interferometer bias voltage. The comparison with conventional semiconductor interferometers points towards universal processes driving the quantum decoherence in those two different 2D systems, with graphene being much more robust to their effect.
Electron spin and pseudospin degrees of freedom play a critical role in many-body phenomena through exchange interactions, the understanding and control of which enable the construction of states with complex topological orders and exotic excitations. In this work, we demonstrate fine control of the valley isospin in high-quality bilayer graphene devices and its profound impact in realizing fractional quantum Hall effect with different ground state orders. We present evidence for a new even-denominator fractional quantum Hall state in bilayer graphene, its spontaneous valley polarization in the limit of zero valley Zeeman energy, and the breaking of particle-hole symmetry. These observations support the Moore-Read anti-Pfaffian order. Our experiments establish valley isospin in bilayer graphene to be a powerful experimental knob and open the door to engineering non-Abelian states and quantum information processes in a quantum Hall platform.
Self-similarity and fractals have fascinated researchers across various disciplines. In graphene placed on boron nitride and subjected to a magnetic field, self-similarity appears in the form of numerous replicas of the original Dirac spectrum, and their quantization gives rise to a fractal pattern of Landau levels, referred to as the Hofstadter butterfly. Here we employ capacitance spectroscopy to probe directly the density of states (DoS) and energy gaps in this spectrum. Without a magnetic field, replica spectra are seen as pronounced DoS minima surrounded by van Hove singularities. The Hofstadter butterfly shows up as recurring Landau fan diagrams in high fields. Electron-electron interactions add another twist to the self-similar behaviour. We observe suppression of quantum Hall ferromagnetism, a reverse Stoner transition at commensurable fluxes and additional ferromagnetism within replica spectra. The strength and variety of the interaction effects indicate a large playground to study many-body physics in fractal Dirac systems.
Using transport measurements, we investigate multicomponent quantum Hall (QH) ferromagnetism in dual-gated rhombohedral trilayer graphene (r-TLG), in which the real spin, orbital pseudospin and layer pseudospins of the lowest Landau level form spontaneous ordering. We observe intermediate quantum Hall plateaus, indicating a complete lifting of the degeneracy of the zeroth Landau level (LL) in the hole-doped regime. In charge neutral r-TLG, the orbital degeneracy is broken first, and the layer degeneracy is broken last and only the in presence of an interlayer potential U. In the phase space of U and filling factor, we observe an intriguing hexagon pattern, which is accounted for by a model based on crossings between symmetry-broken LLs.