Experimental Observation of Tunable Chern insulator and Ferromagnetism in ABC-Trilayer Graphene on hBN Moiré Superlattice

Haldane theorized that Chern insulators with integer QH effects could appear in lattice models with complex hopping parameters even at zero magnetic field. The ABC-trilayer graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (TLG/hBN) moiré superlattice provides an attractive platform to explore Chern insulators because it features nearly flat moiré minibands with a valley-dependent electrically tunable Chern number. Here we report the experimental observation of a correlated Chern insulator in a TLG/hBN moiré superlattice. We show that reversing the direction of the applied vertical electric field switches TLG/hBN's moiré minibands between zero and finite Chern numbers, as revealed by dramatic changes in magneto-transport behavior. The Hall resistance is well quantized at h/2e2, i.e. C = 2, for B > 0.4 T. The correlated Chern insulator is ferromagnetic, exhibiting significant magnetic hysteresis and a large anomalous Hall signal at zero magnetic field. Our discovery of a C = 2 Chern insulator at zero magnetic field should open up exciting opportunities for discovering novel correlated topological states, possibly with novel topological excitations, in nearly flat and topologically nontrivial moiré minibands.