Spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking in twisted double bilayer graphene

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking in twisted double bilayer graphene, evidenced by anomalous Hall effect and hysteresis, revealing complex spin-valley interactions and ferromagnetic order.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental evidence of spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking and valley ferromagnetism in twisted double bilayer graphene.

Findings

Observation of anomalous Hall effect with hysteresis in tDBG

Persistence of hysteresis under in-plane magnetic fields

Strong influence of in-plane fields on resistivity

Abstract

Twisted double bilayer graphene (tDBG) comprises two Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene sheets with a twist between them. Gate voltages applied to top and back gates of a tDBG device tune both the flatness and topology of the electronic bands, enabling an unusual level of experimental control. Broken spin/valley symmetry metallic states have been observed in tDBG devices with twist angles $\sim $ 1.2-1.3$^\circ$, but the topologies and order parameters of these states have remained unclear. We report the observation of an anomalous Hall effect in the correlated metal state of tDBG, with hysteresis loops spanning 100s of mT in out-of-plane magnetic field ($B_{\perp}$) that demonstrate spontaneously broken time-reversal symmetry. The $B_{\perp}$ hysteresis persists for in-plane fields up to several Tesla, suggesting valley (orbital) ferromagnetism. At the same time, the resistivity is strongly affected by even mT-scale values of in-plane magnetic field, pointing to spin-valley coupling or to a direct orbital coupling between in-plane field and the valley degree of freedom.