Suppression of symmetry-breaking correlated insulators in a rhombohedral trilayer graphene superlattice

Autor: Xiangyan Han, Yuting Zou, Qianling Liu, Zhiyu Wang, Ruirui Niu, Zhuangzhuang Qu, Zhuoxian Li, Chunrui Han, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Baojuan Dong, Zhida Song, Jinhai Mao, Zheng Han, Zhi Gang Cheng, Zizhao Gan, Jianming Lu
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nature Communications, Vol 15, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2041-1723
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54200-6
Popis: Abstract Counterintuitive temperature dependence of isospin flavor polarization has recently been found in twisted bilayer graphene, where unpolarized electrons in a Fermi liquid become a spin–valley polarized insulator upon heating. So far, the effect has been limited to v = +/−1 (one electron/hole per superlattice cell), leaving open questions such as whether it is a general property of symmetry-breaking electronic phases. Here, by studying a rhombohedral trilayer graphene/boron nitride moiré superlattice, we report that at v = −3 a resistive peak emerges at elevated temperatures or in parallel magnetic fields. Concomitantly, the Hall carrier density tends to reset at the integer filling, signaling spin–valley flavor symmetry breaking. These phenomena can also be observed at v = −1 and −2 when the displacement field is large enough to suppress correlated insulators at low temperatures. Our results greatly expand the scope for observing the counterintuitive temperature dependence of flavor polarization, i.e., the regimes proximal to symmetry-breaking phases where the flavor polarization order strongly fluctuates, encouraging more experimental and theoretical exploration of isospin flavor polarization dynamics in flat-band moiré systems.
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