Extended fractional Chern insulators near half flux in twisted bilayer graphene above the magic angle

ORAL

Abstract

Twisted bilayer graphene hosts a plethora of correlated electronic states when twisted to its magic angle of 1.1 degrees. When tuned only two tenths of a degree above the magic angle, its zero-field correlated states vanish. We previously demonstrated excellent agreement between low-field magnetotransport measurements and single-particle continuum model calculations of a twisted bilayer graphene sample at 1.38 degree twist angle. Here we report a set of strongly correlated states in measurements taken on the same sample at high field. Near half of a magnetic flux quantum per moir´e unit cell, we observe numerous regions of well-quantized odd-denominator fractional Chern insulating states. Several regions of quantization persist over unusually extended ranges of density and field. Though we cannot explicitly rule out more mundane explanations, we believe an atypical mechanism is stabilizing the fractional state such as the excess carriers forming a Wigner crystal as in a partial-Hall crystal. Strong magnetic fields can thus induce strongly correlated electronic phases even in twisted bilayer graphene samples well away from the magic angle.

*This work was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), Materials Sciences and Engineering Division, under Contract DE-AC02-76SF00515. Measurement infrastructure was funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's EPiQS Initiative through Grants GBMF3429 and GBMF9460, and D.E.P. was supported in part by Grant GBMF8683. D.G.-G. gratefully acknowledges support from the Ross M. Brown Family Foundation. Part of this work was performed at the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities, supported by the NSF under Award ECCS-1542152. K.W. and T.T. acknowledge support from the Elemental Strategy Initiative conducted by the MEXT, Japan, Grant JPMXP0112101001 and JSPS KAKENHI Grant JP20H00354. A portion of this work was performed at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which is supported by National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement No. DMR-2128556 and the State of Florida.

Presenters

  • Aaron L Sharpe

    • Stanford Institute for Materials & Energy Sciences, Stanford University
    • Stanford University

Authors

  • Aaron L Sharpe

    • Stanford Institute for Materials & Energy Sciences, Stanford University
    • Stanford University
  • Joe Finney

    • Stanford University
    • Stanford Univ
  • Linsey K Rodenbach

    • Zurich Instruments, Inc.
  • Jian Kang

    • Shanghaitech
  • Xiaoyu Wang

    • National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
  • Connie L Hsueh

    • Stanford University
  • Kenji Watanabe

    • National Institute for Materials Science
    • NIMS
    • Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute for Materials Science
    • Research Center for Electronic and Optical Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan
    • Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute of Material Science, Tsukuba, Japan
    • National Institute of Materials Science
    • Advanced Materials Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science
  • Takashi Taniguchi

    • National Institute for Materials Science
    • International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science
    • Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan
    • International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute of Material Science, Tsukuba, Japan
    • Advanced Materials Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science
  • Marc Kastner

    • Stanford Institute for Materials & Energy Sciences, Stanford University
    • Stanford University
  • Oskar Vafek

    • Florida State University
  • David Goldhaber-Gordon

    • Stanford Institute for Materials & Energy Sciences, Stanford University
    • Stanford University
    • Department of Physics, Stanford University