Half- and quarter-metals in rhombohedral trilayer graphene

Ferromagnetism is most common in transition metal compounds where electrons occupy highly localized d orbitals. However, ferromagnetic order may also arise in low-density two-dimensional electron systems 1 – 5 . Here we show that gate-tuned van Hove singularities in rhombohedral trilayer graphene 6 drive spontaneous ferromagnetic polarization of the electron system into one or more spin and valley flavours. Using capacitance and transport measurements, we observe a cascade of transitions tuned to the density and electronic displacement field between phases in which quantum oscillations have fourfold, twofold or onefold degeneracy, associated with a spin- and valley-degenerate normal metal, spin-polarized ‘half-metal’, and spin- and valley-polarized ‘quarter-metal’, respectively. For electron doping, the salient features of the data are well captured by a phenomenological Stoner model 7 that includes valley-anisotropic interactions. For hole filling, we observe a richer phase diagram featuring a delicate interplay of broken symmetries and transitions in the Fermi surface topology. Finally, we introduce a moiré superlattice using a rotationally aligned hexagonal boron nitride substrate 5 , 8 . Remarkably, we find that the isospin order is only weakly perturbed, with the moiré potential catalysing the formation of topologically nontrivial gapped states whenever itinerant half- or quarter-metal states occur at half- or quarter-superlattice band filling. Our results show that rhombohedral graphene is an ideal platform for well-controlled tests of many-body theory, and reveal magnetism in moiré materials 4 , 5 , 9 , 10 to be fundamentally itinerant in nature. A study shows that rhombohedral graphene is an ideal platform for well-controlled tests of many-body theory and reveals that magnetism in moiré materials is fundamentally itinerant in nature.