Signatures of chiral superconductivity in rhombohedral graphene

Tonghang Han, Zhengguang Lu, Zach Hadjri, Lihan Shi, Zhenghan Wu, Wei Xu, Yuxuan Yao, Armel A. Cotten, Omid Sharifi Sedeh, Henok Weldeyesus, Jixiang Yang, Junseok Seo, Shenyong Ye, Muyang Zhou, Haoyang Liu, Gang Shi, Zhenqi Hua, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Peng Xiong, Dominik M. Zumbühl, Liang Fu and Long Ju ()
Additional contact information
Tonghang Han: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Zhengguang Lu: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Zach Hadjri: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lihan Shi: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Zhenghan Wu: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Wei Xu: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Yuxuan Yao: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Armel A. Cotten: University of Basel
Omid Sharifi Sedeh: University of Basel
Henok Weldeyesus: University of Basel
Jixiang Yang: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Junseok Seo: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Shenyong Ye: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Muyang Zhou: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Haoyang Liu: Florida State University
Gang Shi: Florida State University
Zhenqi Hua: Florida State University
Kenji Watanabe: National Institute for Materials Science
Takashi Taniguchi: National Institute for Materials Science
Peng Xiong: Florida State University
Dominik M. Zumbühl: University of Basel
Liang Fu: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Long Ju: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nature, 2025, vol. 643, issue 8072, 654-661

Abstract: Abstract Chiral superconductors are unconventional superconducting states that break time-reversal symmetry spontaneously and typically feature Cooper pairing at non-zero angular momentum. Such states may host Majorana fermions and provide an important platform for topological physics research and fault-tolerant quantum computing1–7. Despite intensive search and prolonged studies of several candidate systems8–26, chiral superconductivity has remained elusive so far. Here we report the discovery of robust unconventional superconductivity in rhombohedral tetralayer and pentalayer graphene without moiré superlattice effects. We observed two superconducting states in the gate-induced flat conduction bands with Tc up to 300 mK and charge density ne down to 2.4 × 1011 cm−2 in five devices. Spontaneous time-reversal-symmetry breaking (TRSB) owing to orbital motion of the electron is found and several observations indicate the chiral nature of these superconducting states, including: (1) in the superconducting state, Rxx shows magnetic hysteresis in varying out-of-plane magnetic field B⊥—absent from all other superconductors; (2) the superconducting states are robust against in-plane magnetic field and are developed within a spin-polarized and valley-polarized quarter-metal (QM) phase; (3) the normal states show anomalous Hall signals at zero magnetic field and magnetic hysteresis. We also observed a critical B⊥ of 1.4 T, higher than any graphene superconductivity, which indicates a strong-coupling superconductivity close to the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS)–Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) crossover27. Our observations establish a pure carbon material for the study of topological superconductivity, with the promise to explore Majorana modes and topological quantum computing.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09169-7

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