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Proximity screening greatly enhances electronic quality of graphene

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

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  • Daniil Domaretskiy
  • Zefei Wu
  • Van Huy Nguyen
  • Ned Hayward
  • Ian Babich
  • Xiao Li
  • Ekaterina Nguyen
  • Julien Barrier
  • Kornelia Indykiewicz
  • Wendong Wang
  • Roman V. Gorbachev
  • Na Xin
  • Kenji Watanabe
  • Takashi Taniguchi
  • Lee Hague
  • Vladimir I. Fal’ko
  • Irina V. Grigorieva
  • Leonid A. Ponomarenko
  • Alexey I. Berdyugin
  • Andre K. Geim
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<mark>Journal publication date</mark>21/08/2025
<mark>Journal</mark>Nature
Issue number8077
Volume644
Number of pages6
Pages (from-to)646-651
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date20/08/25
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

The electronic quality of two-dimensional systems is crucial when exploring quantum transport phenomena. In semiconductor heterostructures, decades of optimization have yielded record-quality two-dimensional gases with transport and quantum mobilities reaching close to 108 and 106 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9–10. Although the quality of graphene devices has also been improving, it remains comparatively lower11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16–17. Here we report a transformative improvement in the electronic quality of graphene by employing graphite gates placed in its immediate proximity, at 1 nm separation. The resulting screening reduces charge inhomogeneity by two orders of magnitude, bringing it down to a few 107 cm−2 and limiting potential fluctuations to less than 1 meV. Quantum mobilities reach 107 cm2 V−1 s−1, surpassing those in the highest-quality semiconductor heterostructures by an order of magnitude, and the transport mobilities match their record9, 10. This quality enables Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations in fields as low as 1 mT and quantum Hall plateaux below 5 mT. Although proximity screening predictably suppresses electron–electron interactions, fractional quantum Hall states remain observable with their energy gaps reduced only by a factor of 3–5 compared with unscreened devices, demonstrating that many-body phenomena at spatial scales shorter than 10 nm remain robust. Our results offer a reliable route to improving electronic quality in graphene and other two-dimensional systems, which should facilitate the exploration of new physics previously obscured by disorder.