Fractal Butterflies of Chiral Fermions in Bilayer Graphene: Phase Transitions and Emergent Properties

TL;DR

This study explores fractal butterfly spectra in biased bilayer graphene under fractional quantum Hall conditions, revealing phase transitions and controllable properties through potential strength and bias voltage variations.

Contribution

It demonstrates the influence of periodic potential and bias voltage on butterfly spectra and uncovers phase transitions between FQHE and butterfly gaps in chiral bilayer graphene.

Findings

Butterfly spectra show phase transitions between FQHE and butterfly gaps.

Bias voltage can control the effective periodic potential experienced by electrons.

Varying potential strength and bias voltage induces significant spectral changes.

Abstract

We report on our studies of fractal butterflies in biased bilayer graphene in the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) regime. We have considered the case when the external periodic potential is present in one layer and have illustrated the effect of varying both the periodic potential strength and the bias voltage on the FQHE and the butterfly energy gaps. Interestingly, the butterfly spectra exhibits remarkable phase transitions between the FQHE gap and the butterfly gap for chiral electrons in bilayer graphene, by varying either the periodic potential strength or the bias voltage. We also find that, in addition to those phase transitions, by varying the bias voltage one can essentially control the periodic potential strength experienced by the electrons.