2025/03/13 by Erin Morissette, Morissette, Erin, Peiyu Qin +7 · 5 citations
Materials Science · #FOS: Physical sciences #Graphene research and applications #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2503.09954
openalex publication_date 2025/03/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/15 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Spontaneous symmetry breaking provides a powerful window into the nature of underlying electronic orders. In strongly correlated systems, multiple symmetry-breaking orders can arise simultaneously. and their interplay generates an intricate landscape of quantum phases that has remained a central focus of condensed-matter research. In this work, we report a previously unidentified electronic phase in rhombohedral hexalayer graphene, distinguished by the simultaneous breaking of rotational, time-reversal, and inversion symmetries. Broken rotational symmetry is evidenced through anisotropic transport in angle-resolved measurements, while the onset of both the anomalous Hall effect and the nonlinear Hall effect signals the breaking of time-reversal and inversion symmetries. These combined signatures reveal an emergent order consistent with momentum-space condensation, a theoretically anticipated phenomenon realized here experimentally for the first time. This mechanism establishes a natural framework for understanding a broader class of correlated phases known to emerge from the flat bands of two-dimensional materials.