Fractional Topological Phases and Broken Time-Reversal Symmetry in Strained Graphene

Pouyan Ghaemi (1, 2, 3) , Jérôme Cayssol (2, 4, 5) , D. N. Sheng (6) , Ashvin Vishwanath (2, 3)

1 Department of Physics
2 Department of Physics [Berkeley]
3 Materials Science Division [LBNL Berkeley]
4 MPI-PKS - Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme
5 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine
6 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Northridge]

We show that strained or deformed honeycomb lattices are promising platforms to realize fractional topological quantum states in the absence of any magnetic field. The strained induced pseudo magnetic fields are oppositely oriented in the two valleys [1-3] and can be as large as 60-300 Tesla as reported in recent experiments [4,5]. For strained graphene at neutrality, a spin or a valley polarized state is predicted depending on the value of the onsite Coulomb interaction. At fractional filling, the unscreened Coulomb interaction leads to a valley polarized Fractional Quantum Hall liquid which spontaneously breaks time reversal symmetry. Motivated by artificial graphene systems [5-8], we consider tuning the short range part of interactions, and demonstrate that exotic valley symmetric states, including a valley Fractional Topological Insulator and a spin triplet superconductor, can be stabilized by such interaction engineering.

Mots clés: Quantum Hall effects; Electronic transport in graphene; Electronic structure of graphene

Domaines: Matière Condensée [cond-mat]

Pouyan Ghaemi, Jérôme Cayssol, D. N. Sheng, Ashvin Vishwanath. Fractional Topological Phases and Broken Time-Reversal Symmetry in Strained Graphene. Physical Review Letters, 2012, 108 (26), pp.266801. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.266801⟩. ⟨hal-00713246⟩