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Multicomponent fractional quantum Hall effect in graphene

Nature Physics volume 7, pages 693–696 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

The fractional quantum Hall effect1,2,3,4 (FQHE) in an electron gas with multiple internal degrees of freedom provides a model system to study the interplay between symmetry breaking and emergent topological order5. In graphene, the structure of the honeycomb lattice endows the electron wavefunctions with an additional quantum number, termed valley isospin, which, combined with the usual electron spin, yields four-fold degenerate Landau levels (LLs; refs 6, 7). This additional symmetry modifies the FQHE and is conjectured to produce new incompressible ground states in graphene8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17. Here we report multiterminal measurements of the FQHE in high-mobility graphene devices fabricated on hexagonal boron nitride substrates18. The measured energy gaps are large, particularly in the second Landau level, where they are up to 10 times larger than those reported in the cleanest conventional systems. In the lowest Landau level the hierarchy of FQH states reflects the additional valley degeneracy.

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Figure 1: Magnetotransport.
Figure 2: Fractional quantum Hall effect.
Figure 3: Energy gaps.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. K. Jain, C. Toke, N. Shibata, M. O. Goerbig and M. Foster for discussions, J. Sanchez-Yamagishi and P. Jarillo-Herrero for fabrication advice regarding the PVA, and I. Meric, Z. Kagan, A. Tsoi, N. Baklitskaya and I. Mendonca for help with the device preparation. A portion of this work was performed at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which is supported by National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement No. DMR-0654118, the State of Florida and the US Department of Energy. This work is supported by DARPA CERA, AFOSR MURI, FCRP through C2S2 and FENA, NSEC (No. CHE-0117752) and NYSTAR. P.K. and A.F.Y. acknowledge support from DOE (DE-FG02-05ER46215).

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Author notes

  1. C. R. Dean and A. F. Young: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

    C. R. Dean & K. L. Shepard

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

    C. R. Dean, L. Wang & J. Hone

  3. Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

    A. F. Young, P. Cadden-Zimansky, H. Ren & P. Kim

  4. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Tallahassee, Florida 32310, USA

    P. Cadden-Zimansky

  5. Advanced Materials Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan

    K. Watanabe & T. Taniguchi

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Contributions

C.R.D. and A.F.Y. performed all experiments including sample fabrication and measurement, and wrote the paper. P.C-Z. contributed to sample measurement. L.W. and H.R. contributed to sample fabrication. K.W. and T.T. synthesized the h-BN samples. J.H., P.K. and K.L.S. advised on experiments.

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Correspondence to P. Kim.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Dean, C., Young, A., Cadden-Zimansky, P. et al. Multicomponent fractional quantum Hall effect in graphene. Nature Phys 7, 693–696 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2007

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