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Electron viscosity, current vortices and negative nonlocal resistance in graphene

Nature Physics volume 12, pages 672–676 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Quantum-critical strongly correlated electron systems are predicted to feature universal collision-dominated transport resembling that of viscous fluids1,2,3,4. However, investigation of these phenomena has been hampered by the lack of known macroscopic signatures of electron viscosity5,6,7,8,9. Here we identify vorticity as such a signature and link it with a readily verifiable striking macroscopic d.c. transport behaviour. Produced by the viscous flow, vorticity can drive electric current against an applied field, resulting in a negative nonlocal voltage. We argue that the latter may play the same role for the viscous regime as zero electrical resistance does for superconductivity. Besides offering a diagnostic that distinguishes viscous transport from ohmic currents, the sign-changing electrical response affords a robust tool for directly measuring the viscosity-to-resistivity ratio. A strongly interacting electron–hole plasma in high-mobility graphene10,11,12 affords a unique link between quantum-critical electron transport and the wealth of fluid mechanics phenomena.

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Figure 1: Current streamlines and potential map for viscous and ohmic flows.
Figure 2: Nonlocal response for different resistivity-to-viscosity ratios ρ/η.
Figure 3: Heating patterns for viscous and ohmic flows.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support of the Center for Integrated Quantum Materials (CIQM) under NSF award 1231319 (L.L.), partial support by the US Army Research Laboratory and the US Army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, under contract number W911NF-13-D-0001 (L.L.), MISTI MIT-Israel Seed Fund (L.L. and G.F.), the Israeli Science Foundation (grant 882) (G.F.) and the Russian Science Foundation (project 14-22-00259) (G.F.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    Leonid Levitov

  2. Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

    Gregory Falkovich

  3. Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Moscow 127994, Russia

    Gregory Falkovich

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  1. Leonid Levitov
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  2. Gregory Falkovich
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Correspondence to Leonid Levitov or Gregory Falkovich.

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Levitov, L., Falkovich, G. Electron viscosity, current vortices and negative nonlocal resistance in graphene. Nature Phys 12, 672–676 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3667

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