Paper detail

Transport Gap in Suspended Bilayer Graphene at Zero Magnetic Field

We report a change of three orders of magnitudes in the resistance of a suspended bilayer graphene flake which varies from a few k$Ω$s in the high carrier density regime to several M$Ω$s around the charge neutrality point (CNP). The corresponding transport gap is 8 meV at 0.3 K. The sequence of appearing quantum Hall plateaus at filling factor $ν=2$ followed by $ν=1$ suggests that the observed gap is caused by the symmetry breaking of the lowest Landau level. Investigation of the gap in a tilted magnetic field indicates that the resistance at the CNP shows a weak linear decrease for increasing total magnetic field. Those observations are in agreement with a spontaneous valley splitting at zero magnetic field followed by splitting of the spins originating from different valleys with increasing magnetic field. Both, the transport gap and $B$ field response point toward spin polarized layer antiferromagnetic state as a ground state in the bilayer graphene sample. The observed non-trivial dependence of the gap value on the normal component of $B$ suggests possible exchange mechanisms in the system.