Electronic stripe order in rhombohedral hexalayer graphene

The quantum Hall stripe phase provides a paradigm example of spontaneous symmetry breaking driven by strong electron–electron interactions, manifested through pronounced transport anisotropy. Here, we report a related electronic phase that emerges at zero magnetic field in rhombohedral hexalayer graphene, characterized by the onset of extreme spatial anisotropy in charge transport. Using angle-resolved transport measurements, we extract the full conductivity tensor and find that the intrinsic conductivity along one principal axis exceeds that of the orthogonal direction by orders of magnitude. The transport anisotropy originates from a smectic electronic order, evidenced by a first-order melting transition, manifested as prominent hysteresis in transport upon thermal cycling. This stripe phase provides a natural framework for understanding the emergence of superconductivity in the same material platform. More broadly, our results establish angle-resolved transport as a sensitive probe of broken-symmetry orders and their intertwined relationship with collective phenomena in strongly correlated two-dimensional systems.