Thermal dissipation in the quantum Hall regime in graphene

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that thermal dissipation can occur in the quantum Hall regime in graphene despite topological protection, revealing new insights into dissipation processes in topological systems.

Contribution

It shows that thermal dissipation occurs in graphene's quantum Hall regime, challenging the notion that topological protection prevents dissipation.

Findings

Dissipation occurs along the downstream chiral flow in Hall plateau regime.

Dissipation mainly occurs in the bulk during the plateau transition.

Energy distribution evolves from non-equilibrium to equilibrium during dissipation.

Abstract

It is widely accepted that both backscattering and dissipation cannot occur in topological systems because of the topological protection. Here we show that the thermal dissipation can occur in the quantum Hall (QH) regime in graphene in the presence of dissipation sources, although the Hall plateaus and the zero longitudinal resistance still survive. Dissipation appears along the downstream chiral flow direction of the constriction in the Hall plateau regime, but it occurs mainly in the bulk in the Hall plateau transition regime. In addition, dissipation processes are accompanied with the evolution of the energy distribution from non-equilibrium to equilibrium. This indicates that topology neither prohibits the appearance of dissipation nor prohibits entropy increasing, which opens a new topic on the dissipation in topological systems.