Insulating state in tetralayers reveals an even–odd interaction effect in multilayer graphene

Anya L. Grushina, Dong-Keun Ki, Mikito Koshino, Aurelien A. L. Nicolet, Clément Faugeras, Edward McCann, Marek Potemski and Alberto F. Morpurgo ()
Additional contact information
Anya L. Grushina: University of Geneva, 24 Quai Ernest-Ansermet
Dong-Keun Ki: University of Geneva, 24 Quai Ernest-Ansermet
Mikito Koshino: Tohoku University
Aurelien A. L. Nicolet: Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Intenses, CNRS-UJF-UPS-INSA
Clément Faugeras: Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Intenses, CNRS-UJF-UPS-INSA
Edward McCann: Lancaster University
Marek Potemski: Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Intenses, CNRS-UJF-UPS-INSA
Alberto F. Morpurgo: University of Geneva, 24 Quai Ernest-Ansermet

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Close to charge neutrality, the electronic properties of graphene and its multilayers are sensitive to electron–electron interactions. In bilayers, for instance, interactions are predicted to open a gap between valence and conduction bands, turning the system into an insulator. In mono and (Bernal-stacked) trilayers, which remain conducting at low temperature, interactions do not have equally drastic consequences. It is expected that interaction effects become weaker for thicker multilayers, whose behaviour should converge to that of graphite. Here we show that this expectation does not correspond to reality by revealing the occurrence of an insulating state close to charge neutrality in Bernal-stacked tetralayer graphene. The phenomenology—incompatible with the behaviour expected from the single-particle band structure—resembles that observed in bilayers, but the insulating state in tetralayers is visible at higher temperature. We explain our findings, and the systematic even–odd effect of interactions in Bernal-stacked layers of different thickness that emerges from experiments, in terms of a generalization of the interaction-driven, symmetry-broken states proposed for bilayers.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms7419 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms7419

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7419

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().