Competing Fractional Quantum Hall and Electron Solid Phases in Graphene

Phys Rev Lett. 2019 Jan 18;122(2):026802. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.026802.

Abstract

We report experimental observation of the reentrant integer quantum Hall effect in graphene, appearing in the N=2 Landau level. Similar to high-mobility GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures, the effect is due to a competition between incompressible fractional quantum Hall states, and electron solid phases. The tunability of graphene allows us to measure the B-T phase diagram of the electron solid phase. The hierarchy of reentrant states suggests spin and valley degrees of freedom play a role in determining the ground state energy. We find that the melting temperature scales with magnetic field, and construct a phase diagram of the electron liquid-solid transition.