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Emergent Dirac Gullies and Gully-Symmetry-Breaking Quantum Hall States in ABA Trilayer Graphene

A. A. Zibrov1, P. Rao2, C. Kometter1, E. M. Spanton3, J. I. A. Li4, Cory R. Dean4, T. Taniguchi5, K. Watanabe5, M. Serbyn2 et al.

A. F. Young1

  • 1Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
  • 2Institute of Science and Technology, Am Campus 1, 3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria
  • 3California Nanosystems Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
  • 4Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10025, USA
  • 5Advanced Materials Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 167601 – Published 15 October, 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.167601

Abstract

We report on quantum capacitance measurements of high quality, graphite and hexagonal boron nitride encapsulated Bernal stacked trilayer graphene devices. At zero applied magnetic field, we observe a number of electron density- and electrical displacement-tuned features in the electronic compressibility associated with changes in Fermi surface topology. At a high displacement field and low density, strong trigonal warping gives rise to three new emergent Dirac cones in each valley, which we term “gullies.” The gullies are centered around the corners of a hexagonal Brillouin zone and related by threefold rotation symmetry. At low magnetic fields of B=1.25  T, the gullies manifest as a change in the degeneracy of the Landau levels from two to three. Weak incompressible states are also observed at integer filling within these triplet Landau levels, which a Hartree-Fock analysis indicates are associated with Coulomb-driven nematic phases that spontaneously break rotation symmetry.

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Synopsis

Additional Peaks in Graphene’s Band Structure

Published 15 October, 2018

Researchers observe new features in the band structure of multilayer graphene that point to enhanced electron interactions.

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References (38)

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 167601– Published 15 October, 2018
  • Received 27 April 2018
Article part of CHORUS
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