Spontaneous parity breaking of graphene in the quantum Hall regime

Jean-Noël Fuchs (1) , Pascal Lederer (1)

1 LPS - Laboratoire de Physique des Solides

We propose that the inversion symmetry of the graphene honeycomb lattice is spontaneously broken via a magnetic field dependent Peierls distortion. This leads to valley splitting of the $n=0$ Landau level but not of the other Landau levels. Compared to quantum Hall valley ferromagnetism recently discussed in the literature, lattice distortion provides an alternative explanation to all the currently observed quantum Hall plateaus in graphene.

Domaines: Autre [cond-mat.other]; Systèmes mésoscopiques et effet Hall quantique [cond-mat.mes-hall]

Jean-Noël Fuchs, Pascal Lederer. Spontaneous parity breaking of graphene in the quantum Hall regime. Physical Review Letters, 2007, 98, pp.016803. ⟨hal-00086618v3⟩