Angle-resolved transport nonreciprocity and spontaneous symmetry breaking in twisted trilayer graphene

Abstract

The ability to identify and characterize spontaneous symmetry breaking is central to our understanding of 2D materials with strong correlation, such as the moir\'e flat bands in magic-angle twisted graphene bilayer and trilayer. In this work, we utilize angle-resolved measurements of transport nonreciprocity to investigate spontaneous symmetry breaking in twisted trilayer graphene. By analyzing the angular dependence of nonreciprocity in both longitudinal and transverse channels, we are able to identify the symmetry axis associated with the underlying electronic order. We report that a hysteretic rotation in the mirror axis can be induced by thermal cycles and a large current bias, which offers unambiguous evidence for the spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry. Moreover, the onset of nonreciprocity with decreasing temperature coincides with the emergence of orbital ferromagnetism. Combined with the angular dependence of the superconducting diode effect, our findings uncover a direct link between rotational and time-reversal symmetry breaking. These symmetry requirements point towards the exchange-driven instabilities in the momentum space as a possible origin for transport nonreciprocity in tTLG.