The quantum Hall system can be used to study many-body physics owing to its multiple internal electronic degrees of freedom and tunability. While quantum phase transitions have been studied intensively, research on the temperature-induced phase transitions of this system is limited. We measured the pure bulk conductivity of a quantum Hall antiferromagnetic state in bilayer graphene over a wide range of temperatures and revealed the two-step phase transition associated with the breaking of the long-range order and short-range antiferromagnetic order. Our findings are fundamental to understanding electron correlation in quantum Hall systems.
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.
The transport properties of epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001) at quantizing magnetic fields are investigated. Devices patterned perpendicularly to SiC terraces clearly exhibit bilayer inclusions distributed along the substrate step edges. We show that the transport properties in the quantum Hall regime are heavily affected by the presence of bilayer inclusions, and observe a significant departure from the conventional quantum Hall characteristics. A quantitative model involving enhanced inter-channel scattering mediated by the presence of bilayer inclusions is presented that successfully explains the observed symmetry properties.
We revisit the physics of electron gas bilayers in the quantum Hall regime [Nature, 432 (2004) 691; Science, 305 (2004) 950], where transport and tunneling measurements provided evidence of a superfluid phase being present in the system. Previously, this behavior was explained by the possible formation of a BEC of excitons in the half-filled electron bilayers, where empty states play the role of holes. We discuss the fundamental difficulties with this scenario, and propose an alternative approach based on a treatment of the system as a pseudospin magnet. We show that the experimentally observed tunneling peak can be linked to the XY ferromagnet (FM) to Ising antiferromagnet (AFM) phase transition of the S=1/2 XXZ pseudospin model, driven by the change in total electron density. This transition is accompanied by a qualitative change in the nature of the low energy spin wave dispersion from a gapless linear mode in the XY-FM phase to a gapped, quadratic mode in the Ising-AFM phase.
We measured the magnetoresistance of bilayer quantum Hall (QH) effects at the fractional filling factor $ u =2/3$ by changing the total electron density and the density difference between two layers. Three different QH states were separated by two types of phase transition: One is the spin transition and the other is the pseudospin transition. In addition, two different hystereses were detected, one of which is specific to bilayer systems. The phase transitions and the hystereses are described well by a composite fermion model extended to a bilayer system.
We numerically study the quantum Hall effect (QHE) in bilayer graphene based on tight-binding model in the presence of disorder. Two distinct QHE regimes are identified in the full energy band separated by a critical region with non-quantized Hall Effect. The Hall conductivity around the band center (Dirac point) shows an anomalous quantization proportional to the valley degeneracy, but the $ u=0$ plateau is markedly absent, which is in agreement with experimental observation. In the presence of disorder, the Hall plateaus can be destroyed through the float-up of extended levels toward the band center and higher plateaus disappear first. The central two plateaus around the band center are most robust against disorder scattering, which is separated by a small critical region in between near the Dirac point. The longitudinal conductance around the Dirac point is shown to be nearly a constant in a range of disorder strength, till the last two QHE plateaus completely collapse.