Helical quantum Hall phase in graphene on SrTiO3

Abstract

The ground state of charge-neutral graphene under perpendicular magnetic field was predicted to be a quantum Hall topological insulator with a ferromagnetic order and spin-filtered, helical edge channels. In most experiments, however, an insulating state is observed that is accounted for by lattice-scale interactions that promote a broken-symmetry state with gapped bulk and edge excitations. We tuned the ground state of the graphene zeroth Landau level to the topological phase through a suitable screening of the Coulomb interaction with the high dielectric constant of a strontium titanate (SrTiO3) substrate. Robust helical edge transport emerged at magnetic fields as low as 1 tesla and withstanding temperatures up to 110 kelvin over micron-long distances. This versatile graphene platform may find applications in spintronics and topological quantum computation.