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  • Open Access

Quantum Hall Effect and Semimetallic Behavior of Dual-Gated ABA-Stacked Trilayer Graphene

E. A. Henriksen*, D. Nandi, and J. P. Eisenstein

  • Condensed Matter Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

  • *erikku@caltech.edu
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Phys. Rev. X 2, 011004 – Published 19 January, 2012

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.2.011004

Abstract

The electronic structure of multilayer graphenes depends strongly on the number of layers as well as the stacking order. Here we explore the electronic transport of purely ABA-stacked trilayer graphenes in a dual-gated field-effect device configuration. We find both that the zero-magnetic-field transport and the quantum Hall effect at high magnetic fields are distinctly different from the monolayer and bilayer graphenes, and that they show electron-hole asymmetries that are strongly suggestive of a semimetallic band overlap. When the ABA trilayers are subjected to an electric field perpendicular to the sheet, Landau-level splittings due to a lifting of the valley degeneracy are clearly observed.

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Popular Summary

The discovery of monolayer graphene, a one-atom-thick flake of carbon atoms and a building block of graphite, won the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics for leading to the discoveries and understanding of many “exceptional properties that originate from the remarkable world of quantum physics.” Pseudorelativistic charge carriers, electronic conduction rivaling that of copper, and a new manifestation of the quantum Hall effect are among such properties. However, physicists have not stopped at monolayer graphene and have expanded the realm of investigations to include the bilayer and trilayer forms. Bilayer graphene is now known to be a semiconductor with its own peculiar quantum Hall effect. How does a trilayer graphene behave compared to monolayer and bilayer graphene at one end and graphite at the other? In this experimental paper, we take steps toward addressing this fundamental question by exploring the electronic transport of trilayer graphene.

It turns out that the properties of a trilayer graphene depend on how the three component monolayers are stacked. There are two distinct stacking orders, called ABA and ABC. We have prepared high-quality samples of trilayer graphene, unambiguously identified as being ABA-stacked. We have then fabricated a trilayer sheet into a dual-gated field-effect-transistor device and investigated its electronic properties at low temperatures and in both zero and high magnetic fields. The dual-gate configuration allows us to independently tune both the sample carrier density and the electric displacement field perpendicular to the sheet—a flexibility key to identifying phenomena that are dependent on either one or the other parameter.

A wealth of information about the electronic structure of this material has emerged from our study. The sequence of quantized Hall plateaus clearly shows that three Landau levels lie close to zero energy, an observation that can be traced to the chirality of the charge carriers in the three monolayers. At high electric-displacement fields, a new sequence of quantized Hall plateaus emerges due to the underlying mirror symmetry of the ABA lattice—a phenomenon seen for the first time. Finally, a peculiar electron-hole asymmetry is observed and is understood to be linked to the underlying semimetallic band structure. An interesting scenario may arise from this asymmetry: The lowest Landau levels cross at the sample edge, giving rise to a set of counterpropagating edge states.

Our work provides a solid basis for further explorations of the electronic properties of trilayer and multilayer graphene. One may explore the consequences of a tunable semimetallic band structure for device applications, or the impact of electron-electron interactions which are expected to be strong in multilayer graphenes.

See Also

Editorial: Current Graphene Research—Going beyond the Pure Monolayer

Phys. Rev. X 2, 010001 (2012)

Article Text

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. X 2, 011004– Published 19 January, 2012
  • Received 12 September 2011
Article part of CHORUS
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This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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