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Quantum Hall effect in black phosphorus two-dimensional electron system

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Abstract

The development of new, high-quality functional materials has been at the forefront of condensed-matter research. The recent advent of two-dimensional black phosphorus has greatly enriched the materials base of two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs)1,2,3,4,5. Here, we report the observation of the integer quantum Hall effect in a high-quality black phosphorus 2DES. The high quality is achieved by embedding the black phosphorus 2DES in a van der Waals heterostructure close to a graphite back gate6,7; the graphite gate screens the impurity potential in the 2DES and brings the carrier Hall mobility up to 6,000 cm2 V−1 s−1. The exceptional mobility enabled us to observe the quantum Hall effect and to gain important information on the energetics of the spin-split Landau levels in black phosphorus. Our results set the stage for further study on quantum transport and device application in the ultrahigh mobility regime.

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Figure 1: The device structure and mobility characterization of the black phosphorus 2DHG.
Figure 2: The QH effect in the black phosphorus 2DHG.
Figure 3: Measurement of the QH energy gaps at ν = 1 and 2.
Figure 4: Probing the LL energetics in a tilted magnetic field.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Hamilton, L. Yang for helpful discussions. We also thank S. Hannahs, T. Murphy, E. Sang Choi, D. Graf, J. Billings, B. Pullum, L. Balicas, L. Pi, C. Xi for help with measurements in DC high magnetic fields, J. Wang, Z. Xia for help with measurements in pulsed magnetic fields, and P. Kim, X. Liu, L. Wang for help with the dry-transfer technique. A portion of this work was performed at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which is supported by National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement no. DMR-1157490, the State of Florida, and the US Department of Energy. A portion of this work was performed on the Steady High Magnetic Field Facilities, High Magnetic Field Laboratory, CAS. Measurements in pulsed magnetic field were carried out at Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center, China. Part of the sample fabrication was conducted at Fudan Nano-fabrication Lab. L.L., F. Y. and Y.Z. acknowledge support from NSF of China (grant nos. 11425415 and 11421404) and National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program; grant no. 2013CB921902). L.L. and Y.Z. also acknowledge support from Samsung Global Research Outreach (GRO) Program. G.J.Y and X.H.C. acknowledge support from the ‘Strategic Priority Research Program’ of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDB04040100), the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program; grant no. 2012CB922002) and NSF of China. Z.Z. and Y.W. are supported by Ministry of Science and Technology of China (grant no. 2015CB921000). W.L. and K.C. acknowledge support from NSF of China (grant no. 11434010). K.W. and T.T. acknowledge support from the Elemental Strategy Initiative conducted by the MEXT, Japan. T.T. also acknowledges support by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas, ‘Nano Informatics’ (grant nos. 262480621 and 25106006) from JSPS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Likai Li, Fangyuan Yang & Yuanbo Zhang

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Likai Li, Fangyuan Yang, Guo Jun Ye, Xian Hui Chen & Yuanbo Zhang

  3. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at Microscale and Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, China

    Guo Jun Ye & Xian Hui Chen

  4. Key Laboratory of Strongly Coupled Quantum Matter Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, China

    Guo Jun Ye & Xian Hui Chen

  5. Department of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Zuocheng Zhang & Yayu Wang

  6. Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center and School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Zengwei Zhu & Liang Li

  7. SKLSM, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PO Box 912, Beijing, 100083, China

    Wenkai Lou, Xiaoying Zhou & Kai Chang

  8. Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, China

    Wenkai Lou, Xiaoying Zhou & Kai Chang

  9. Advanced Materials Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044, Japan

    Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi

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  1. Likai Li
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  2. Fangyuan Yang
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  8. Liang Li
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Contributions

L.L. and F.Y. fabricated the black phosphorus devices, performed transport measurements and analysed the data. Z. Z. helped with the sample fabrication and transport measurements. G.J.Y. and X.H.C. grew the bulk black phosphorus crystals. Z.Z. and L.L. helped with the measurements in a pulsed high magnetic field. W.L., X.Z. and K.C. did theoretical calculations. K.W. and T. T. grew the bulk hBN. Y.Z., X.H.C. and Y.W. co-supervised the project. L.L., F.Y. and Y.Z. wrote the paper with input from all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xian Hui Chen or Yuanbo Zhang.

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Li, L., Yang, F., Ye, G. et al. Quantum Hall effect in black phosphorus two-dimensional electron system. Nature Nanotech 11, 593–597 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.42

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