Visualizing orbital magnetism in electron doped rhombohedral multilayer graphene
Abstract
Electron doped rhombohedral multilayer graphene at high displacement field features an exceptionally flat band minimum with near-ideal quantum geometry. Experiments in this regime observe the formation of a 'quarter metal,' in which the electron liquid condenses into a single spin- and valley flavor. Remarkably, recent experiments have found a zero resistance state in the same region of the density- and displacement-field-tuned parameter space, attributed to the formation of a chiral superconductor characterized by a finite-momentum Cooper pair condensate. Here, we use nanoSQUID-on-tip magnetometry to map the orbital magnetization of electron-doped rhombohedral graphene devices ranging in thickness between 3 and 13 layers. Magnetization within the quarter metal phases peaks at finite density, consistent with concentration of the Berry curvature in a finite-momentum 'ring of fire'. Correlating transport and local magnetometry data in a tetralayer sample reveals that the superconducting state has a finite orbital magnetic moment, providing direct evidence of its chiral nature. We further show that widely observed stochastic switching of the resistivity in the metallic regime arises from a density-tuned sign change in the valley-resolved total magnetic moment. This leads to the formation of metastable magnetic domains under typical gate control sequences and can also be harnessed for electric-field controlled switching of orbital moment across the entire device. Unexpectedly, we find magnetic inhomogeneity specific to the apparent normal state of the chiral superconductor, suggestive of a strain-tuned competition between magnetic and non-magnetic ground states. Our results point to a subtle energetic competition underlying the observation of chiral superconductivity in a narrow range of layer numbers.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.30316,
title = {Visualizing orbital magnetism in electron doped rhombohedral multilayer graphene},
author = {Owen I. Sheekey and Trevor B. Arp and Benjamin A. Foutty and Ruoxi Zhang and Tixuan Tan and Ludwig F. W. Holleis and Yi Guo and Sandesh S. Kalantre and Canxun Zhang and Mark Zakharyan and David Gong and Aidan Keough and Youngjoon Choi and Ysun Choi and Siyuan Xu and Tian Xie and Ben Hodder Alexander and Marisa Hocking and Qingrui Cao and Martin E. Huber and Takashi Taniguchi and Kenji Watanabe and Chenhao Jin and Etienne Lantagne-Hurtubise and Aaron Sharpe and Trithep Devakul and Andrea F. Young},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.30316},
year = {2026}
}