Skyrmion solids in monolayer graphene

Haoxin Zhou, Hryhoriy Polshyn, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Watanabe, Andrea F. Young

Published 2019-04-25Version 1

Partially filled Landau levels host competing orders, with electron solids prevailing close to integer fillings before giving way to fractional quantum Hall liquids as the Landau level fills. Here, we report the observation of an electron solid with noncolinear spin texture in monolayer graphene, consistent with solidification of skyrmions---topological spin textures characterized by quantized electrical charge. In electrical transport, electron solids reveal themselves through a rapid metal-insulator transition in the bulk electrical conductivity as the temperature is lowered, accompanied by the emergence of strongly nonlinear dependence on the applied bias voltage. We probe the spin texture of the solids using a modified Corbino geometry that allows ferromagnetic magnons to be launched and detected. We find that magnon transport is highly efficient when one Landau level is filled ($\nu=1$), consistent with quantum Hall ferromagnetic spin polarization; however, even minimal doping immediately quenches the the magnon signal while leaving the vanishing low-temperature charge conductivity unchanged. Our results can be understood by the formation of a solid of charged skyrmions near $\nu=1$, whose noncolinear spin texture leads to rapid magnon decay. Data near fractional fillings further shows evidence for several fractional skyrmion crystals, suggesting that graphene hosts a vast and highly tunable landscape of coupled spin and charge orders.