Signatures of chiral superconductivity in rhombohedral graphene

Abstract

Chiral superconductors are unconventional superconducting states that break time reversal symmetry spontaneously and typically feature Cooper pairing at non-zero angular momentum. Such states may host Majorana fermions and provide an important platform for topological physics research and fault-tolerant quantum computing^1–7. Despite intensive search and prolonged studies of several candidate systems^8–26, chiral superconductivity has remained elusive so far. Here we report the discovery of robust unconventional superconductivity in rhombohedral tetra- and penta-layer graphene without moiré superlattice effects. We observed two superconducting states in the gate-induced flat conduction bands with T_c up to 300 mK and charge density n_e down to 2.4*10¹¹ cm^-2 in five devices. Spontaneous time-reversal-symmetry-breaking due to electron’s orbital motion is found, and several observations indicate the chiral nature of these superconducting states, including: 1. In the superconducting state, R_xx shows magnetic hysteresis in varying out-of-plane magnetic field B_⊥—absent from all other superconductors; 2. the superconducting states are robust against in-plane magnetic field and are developed within a spin- and valley-polarized quarter-metal phase; 3. the normal states show anomalous Hall signals at zero magnetic field and magnetic hysteresis. We also observed a critical B_⊥ of 1.4 Tesla, higher than any graphene superconductivity and indicates a strong-coupling superconductivity close to the BCS-BEC crossover²⁷. Our observations establish a pure carbon material for the study of topological superconductivity, with the promise to explore Majorana modes and topological quantum computing.

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