Superconductivity in rhombohedral trilayer graphene

Haoxin Zhou, Tian Xie, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Watanabe and Andrea F. Young ()
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Haoxin Zhou: University of California
Tian Xie: University of California
Takashi Taniguchi: National Institute for Materials Science
Kenji Watanabe: National Institute for Materials Science
Andrea F. Young: University of California

Nature, 2021, vol. 598, issue 7881, 434-438

Abstract: Abstract To access superconductivity via the electric field effect in a clean, two-dimensional device is a central goal of nanoelectronics. Recently, superconductivity has been realized in graphene moiré heterostructures1–4; however, many of these structures are not mechanically stable, and experiments show signatures of strong disorder. Here we report the observation of superconductivity—manifesting as low or vanishing resistivity at sub-kelvin temperatures—in crystalline rhombohedral trilayer graphene5,6, a structurally metastable carbon allotrope. Superconductivity occurs in two distinct gate-tuned regions (SC1 and SC2), and is deep in the clean limit defined by the ratio of mean free path and superconducting coherence length. Mapping of the normal state Fermi surfaces by quantum oscillations reveals that both superconductors emerge from an annular Fermi sea, and are proximal to an isospin-symmetry-breaking transition where the Fermi surface degeneracy changes7. SC1 emerges from a paramagnetic normal state, whereas SC2 emerges from a spin-polarized, valley-unpolarized half-metal17 and violates the Pauli limit for in-plane magnetic fields by at least one order of magnitude8,9. We discuss our results in view of several mechanisms, including conventional phonon-mediated pairing10,11, pairing due to fluctuations of the proximal isospin order12, and intrinsic instabilities of the annular Fermi liquid13,14. Our observation of superconductivity in a clean and structurally simple two-dimensional metal provides a model system to test competing theoretical models of superconductivity without the complication of modelling disorder, while enabling new classes of field-effect controlled electronic devices based on correlated electron phenomena and ballistic electron transport.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03926-0

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