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# Observation of the fractional quantum Hall effect in graphene

## Abstract

When electrons are confined in two dimensions and subject to strong magnetic fields, the Coulomb interactions between them can become very strong, leading to the formation of correlated states of matter, such as the fractional quantum Hall liquid1,2. In this strong quantum regime, electrons and magnetic flux quanta bind to form complex composite quasiparticles with fractional electronic charge; these are manifest in transport measurements of the Hall conductivity as rational fractions of the elementary conductance quantum. The experimental discovery of an anomalous integer quantum Hall effect in graphene has enabled the study of a correlated two-dimensional electronic system, in which the interacting electrons behave like massless chiral fermions3,4. However, owing to the prevailing disorder, graphene has so far exhibited only weak signatures of correlated electron phenomena5,6, despite intense experimental and theoretical efforts7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14. Here we report the observation of the fractional quantum Hall effect in ultraclean, suspended graphene. In addition, we show that at low carrier density graphene becomes an insulator with a magnetic-field-tunable energy gap. These newly discovered quantum states offer the opportunity to study correlated Dirac fermions in graphene in the presence of large magnetic fields.

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## Acknowledgements

We thank D. Abanin, A. Pinczuk and B. Feldman for discussions. We acknowledge A. Young, P. Cadden-Zimansky and V. Deshpande for careful reading of the manuscript. We especially thank E. Andrei for discussing her results and sample fabrication before publication. This research was supported by the Microsoft Project Q, DARPA and the Department of Energy (DOE).

Author Contributions K.I.B. and F.G. performed the experiments and analysed the data. M.D.S. assisted with fabrication. H.L.S. and P.K. conceived the project. All authors contributed to writing the manuscript.

## Author information

Authors

### Corresponding author

Correspondence to Philip Kim.

## Supplementary information

### Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Figures S1-S4 with Legends, Supplementary Data and Supplementary References. (PDF 873 kb)

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Bolotin, K., Ghahari, F., Shulman, M. et al. Observation of the fractional quantum Hall effect in graphene . Nature 462, 196–199 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08582

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