• 文献标题:   Half- and quarter-metals in rhombohedral trilayer graphene
  • 文献类型:   Article
  • 作  者:   ZHOU HX, XIE T, GHAZARYAN A, HOLDER T, EHRETS JR, SPANTON EM, TANIGUCHI T, WATANABE K, BERG E, SERBYN M, YOUNG AF
  • 作者关键词:  
  • 出版物名称:   NATURE
  • ISSN:   0028-0836 EI 1476-4687
  • 通讯作者地址:  
  • 被引频次:   65
  • DOI:   10.1038/s41586-021-03938-w EA SEP 2021
  • 出版年:   2021

▎ 摘  要

Ferromagnetism is most common in transition metal compounds where electrons occupy highly localized d orbitals. However, ferromagnetic order may also arise in low-density two-dimensional electron systems(1-5). Here we show that gate-tuned van Hove singularities in rhombohedral trilayer graphene(6) drive spontaneous ferromagnetic polarization of the electron system into one or more spin and valley flavours. Using capacitance and transport measurements, we observe a cascade of transitions tuned to the density and electronic displacement field between phases in which quantum oscillations have fourfold, twofold or onefold degeneracy, associated with a spin- and valley-degenerate normal metal, spin-polarized 'half-metal', and spin- and valley-polarized 'quarter-metal', respectively. For electron doping, the salient features of the data are well captured by a phenomenological Stoner model(7) that includes valley-anisotropic interactions. For hole filling, we observe a richer phase diagram featuring a delicate interplay of broken symmetries and transitions in the Fermi surface topology. Finally, we introduce a moire superlattice using a rotationally aligned hexagonal boron nitride substrate(5,8). Remarkably, we find that the isospin order is only weakly perturbed, with the moire potential catalysing the formation of topologically nontrivial gapped states whenever itinerant half- or quarter-metal states occur at half- or quarter-superlattice band filling. Our results show that rhombohedral graphene is an ideal platform for well-controlled tests of many-body theory, and reveal magnetism in moire materials(4,5,9,10) to be fundamentally itinerant in nature.