Inversion Symmetry-Broken Tetralayer Graphene Probed by Second-Harmonic Generation

Abstract

Stacking orders provide a unique way to tune the properties of two-dimensional materials. Recently, ABCB-stacked tetralayer graphene has been predicted to possess atypical elemental ferroelectricity arising from its symmetry breaking but has been experimentally explored very little. Here, we observe pronounced nonlinear optical second-harmonic generation (SHG) in ABCB-stacked tetralayer graphene while absent in both ABAB- and ABCA-stacked allotropes. Our results provide direct evidence of symmetry breaking in ABCB-stacked tetralayer graphene. The remarkable contrast in the SHG spectra of tetralayer graphene allows straightforward identification of ABCB domains from the other two kinds of stacking order and facilitates the characterization of their crystalline orientation. The employed SHG technique serves as a convenient tool for exploring the intriguing physics and novel nonlinear optics in ABCB-stacked graphene, where spontaneous polarization and intrinsically gapped flat bands coexist. Our results establish ABCB-stacked graphene as a unique platform for studying the rare ferroelectricity in noncentrosymmetric elemental structures.