Quantum Transport and Band Structure Evolution under High Magnetic Field in Few-Layer Tellurene

TL;DR

This study reports the first observation of the quantum Hall effect in few-layer tellurene, revealing unique electronic properties and Landau level degeneracies through detailed transport measurements and theoretical analysis.

Contribution

It demonstrates the realization of quantum Hall effect in tellurene, a novel 2D material, and explores its electronic structure and spin-related phenomena using experimental and DFT methods.

Findings

Observation of quantum Hall effect in tellurene

Four-fold degeneracy of Landau levels

Interplay of Zeeman effect and spin-orbit coupling

Abstract

Quantum Hall effect (QHE) is a macroscopic manifestation of quantized states which only occurs in confined two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) systems. Experimentally, QHE is hosted in high mobility 2DEG with large external magnetic field at low temperature. Two-dimensional van der Waals materials, such as graphene and black phosphorus, are considered interesting material systems to study quantum transport, because it could unveil unique host material properties due to its easy accessibility of monolayer or few-layer thin films at 2D quantum limit. Here for the first time, we report direct observation of QHE in a novel low-dimensional material system: tellurene.High-quality 2D tellurene thin films were acquired from recently reported hydrothermal method with high hole mobility of nearly 3,000 cm2/Vs at low temperatures, which allows the observation of well-developed Shubnikov-de-Haas (SdH) oscillations and QHE. A four-fold degeneracy of Landau levels in SdH oscillations and QHE was revealed. Quantum oscillations were investigated under different gate biases, tilted magnetic fields and various temperatures, and the results manifest the inherent information of the electronic structure of Te. Anomalies in both temperature-dependent oscillation amplitudes and transport characteristics were observed which are ascribed to the interplay between Zeeman effect and spin-orbit coupling as depicted by the density functional theory (DFT) calculations.