Infrared Spectroscopy of Phase Transitions in the Lowest Landau Levels of Bilayer Graphene

Abstract

We perform infrared magnetospectroscopy of Landau level (LL) transitions in dual-gated bilayer graphene. At 𝜈=4 when the zeroth LL (octet) is filled, two resonances are observed indicating the opening of a gap. At 𝜈=0 when the octet is half-filled, multiple resonances disperse nonmonotonically with increasing displacement field, 𝐷, perpendicular to the sheet, showing a phase transition at modest displacement fields from a canted antiferromagnet (CAFM) to the layer-polarized state, with a gap that opens linearly in 𝐷. When 𝐷=0 and 𝜈 is varied, resonances at ±𝜈 show an electron-hole asymmetry with multiple line splittings as the octet is progressively filled. The 𝜈=4 data show good agreement with predictions from a mean-field Hartree-Fock calculation when accounting for multiple tight-binding terms in a four-band model of bilayer graphene. However, even by incorporating a valley interaction anisotropy tuned to the CAFM ground state, only partial agreement is found at 𝜈=0. Our results suggest additional physics is required to understand bilayer graphene at half-filling.