Imaging flat band electron hydrodynamics in biased bilayer graphene

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Canxun, Redekop, Evgeny, Stoyanov, Hari, Farrell, Jack H., Kim, Sunghoon, Holleis, Ludwig, Gong, David, Keough, Aidan, Choi, Youngjoon, Taniguchi, Takashi, Watanabe, Kenji, Huber, Martin E., Jayich, Ania C. Bleszynski, Lucas, Andrew, Young, Andrea F.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Zhang, Canxun
Redekop, Evgeny
Stoyanov, Hari
Farrell, Jack H.
Kim, Sunghoon
Holleis, Ludwig
Gong, David
Keough, Aidan
Choi, Youngjoon
Taniguchi, Takashi
Watanabe, Kenji
Huber, Martin E.
Jayich, Ania C. Bleszynski
Lucas, Andrew
Young, Andrea F.
author_facet Zhang, Canxun
Redekop, Evgeny
Stoyanov, Hari
Farrell, Jack H.
Kim, Sunghoon
Holleis, Ludwig
Gong, David
Keough, Aidan
Choi, Youngjoon
Taniguchi, Takashi
Watanabe, Kenji
Huber, Martin E.
Jayich, Ania C. Bleszynski
Lucas, Andrew
Young, Andrea F.
contents Hydrodynamic electron transport arises when carrier kinetics are dominated by interelectron collisions rather than the relaxation of momentum out of the electron system. In recent years, signatures of electron hydrodynamics have been reported in graphene devices owing to the low disorder and weak electron-phonon coupling. However, these experiments have been performed in regimes where the carrier mass is light, and the electron-electron collision length--though smaller than corresponding lengths for phonon or impurity scattering--remains large in absolute terms, typically several hundred nanometers. This restricts hydrodynamic transport phenomena to large length scales, limiting miniaturization of devices based on hydrodynamic flow. The advent of dual-gated rhombohedral graphene multilayers introduces a new route toward enhanced hydrodynamic behavior via their large--and tunable--effective mass. Here, we employ a scanning superconducting magnetic sensor to image local current flow in dual-gated bilayer graphene. Exploiting a sample geometry sensitive to both laminar and vortical flow, we identify three distinct transport regimes--ballistic, hydrodynamic, and diffusive--across the full phase space spanned by carrier density and displacement field. The strongest hydrodynamic transport is observed in the flat band regime, where fitting our results to a unified Boltzmann transport model reveals the electron-electron scattering length to be comparable to the Fermi wavelength of ~50 nm. High-current measurements, meanwhile, reveal striking nonlinearities in the flow pattern. Our results pave the way for miniaturized electronic devices based on linear and nonlinear electron hydrodynamics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_11175
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Imaging flat band electron hydrodynamics in biased bilayer graphene
Zhang, Canxun
Redekop, Evgeny
Stoyanov, Hari
Farrell, Jack H.
Kim, Sunghoon
Holleis, Ludwig
Gong, David
Keough, Aidan
Choi, Youngjoon
Taniguchi, Takashi
Watanabe, Kenji
Huber, Martin E.
Jayich, Ania C. Bleszynski
Lucas, Andrew
Young, Andrea F.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Hydrodynamic electron transport arises when carrier kinetics are dominated by interelectron collisions rather than the relaxation of momentum out of the electron system. In recent years, signatures of electron hydrodynamics have been reported in graphene devices owing to the low disorder and weak electron-phonon coupling. However, these experiments have been performed in regimes where the carrier mass is light, and the electron-electron collision length--though smaller than corresponding lengths for phonon or impurity scattering--remains large in absolute terms, typically several hundred nanometers. This restricts hydrodynamic transport phenomena to large length scales, limiting miniaturization of devices based on hydrodynamic flow. The advent of dual-gated rhombohedral graphene multilayers introduces a new route toward enhanced hydrodynamic behavior via their large--and tunable--effective mass. Here, we employ a scanning superconducting magnetic sensor to image local current flow in dual-gated bilayer graphene. Exploiting a sample geometry sensitive to both laminar and vortical flow, we identify three distinct transport regimes--ballistic, hydrodynamic, and diffusive--across the full phase space spanned by carrier density and displacement field. The strongest hydrodynamic transport is observed in the flat band regime, where fitting our results to a unified Boltzmann transport model reveals the electron-electron scattering length to be comparable to the Fermi wavelength of ~50 nm. High-current measurements, meanwhile, reveal striking nonlinearities in the flow pattern. Our results pave the way for miniaturized electronic devices based on linear and nonlinear electron hydrodynamics.
title Imaging flat band electron hydrodynamics in biased bilayer graphene
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Strongly Correlated Electrons
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11175