SUSTech reports Transdimensional Anomalous Hall Effect

Southern University of Science and Technology researchers and collaborators said this month they had observed what they call a “transdimensional anomalous Hall effect” in rhombohedral thin graphite, according to a paper published by Nature on April 29. Nature described the result as the experimental observation of a new type of anomalous Hall effect that couples both in-plane and out-of-plane orbital magnetizations in multilayer rhombohedral graphene. (nature.com) (arxiv.org) The study was shared widely on social platforms this week, with posts pointing to the Nature paper and to an arXiv preprint. Southern University of Science and Technology, or SUSTech, said on May 7 that associate professor Yue Zhao’s team and collaborators had experimentally discovered the state and observed the effect. (arxiv.org) ### What exactly did the paper report? The Nature paper reported a new anomalous Hall effect in “rhombohedral thin graphite,” while the arXiv abstract described the device platform more specifically as electrostatically gated rhombohedral ennealayer graphene. The authors wrote that carriers in this regime can sustain coherent orbital motion both within and out of the two-dimensional plane. (nature.com) Qingxin Li, Hua Fan, Min Li, Yinghai Xu, Junwei Song, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Hua Jiang, X. C. Xie, James Hone, Cory Dean, Yue Zhao, Jianpeng Liu and Lei Wang are listed on the arXiv version. The abstract says the state emerges from a metallic phase that spontaneously breaks time-reversal, mirror and rotational symmetries, driven by electron-electron interactions. (newshub.sustech.edu.cn) ### Why are the authors calling it “transdimensional”? The arXiv abstract says the effect appears in a regime where sample thickness is much larger than atomic-layer thickness but smaller than or comparable to the vertical mean free path, which it denotes as lz. (nature.com) In that regime, the authors say, the system is neither in the strict two-dimensional limit nor in the fully incoherent three-dimensional limit. SUSTech’s May 7 account described that interval as a previously unexplored region defined jointly by finite thickness and interlayer coherence. The university said electrons there can execute coherent orbital motion both in-plane and out-of-plane, producing a Hall response coupled to both out-of-plane and in-plane orbital magnetization. (arxiv.org) ### What is the experimental signature readers should focus on? The arXiv abstract says the effect manifests as concurrent out-of-plane and in-plane Hall-resistance hysteresis, controlled by external magnetic fields applied along either direction. SUSTech’s summary similarly said the team observed pronounced Hall-resistance hysteresis loops when sweeping both parallel and perpendicular magnetic fields. (arxiv.org) Nature’s listing of the paper says the work reports a Hall effect that couples both in-plane and out-of-plane orbital magnetizations. That is the core experimental claim that has circulated in online discussion of the paper this week. (newshub.sustech.edu.cn) ### Who was involved in the work? SUSTech named Yue Zhao, an associate professor, as one of the corresponding authors, alongside Lei Wang of Nanjing University, Jianpeng Liu of ShanghaiTech University and Geliang Yu of Nanjing University. The university said SUSTech was a co-corresponding institution on the paper. (arxiv.org) The same SUSTech release named Qingxin Li of Nanjing University, Hua Fan of SUSTech and Min Li of ShanghaiTech as co-first authors. It also listed collaborators from South China Normal University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Physics, Fudan University, Peking University, the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan, Columbia University and the National University of Singapore, among others. (nature.com) ### Where can readers find the primary sources? Nature published the paper under the title “Transdimensional anomalous Hall effect in rhombohedral thin graphite,” and the article page was live as of May 15, 2026. (newshub.sustech.edu.cn) The arXiv preprint, titled the same way, shows an initial submission date of May 6, 2025. SUSTech linked directly to the Nature article in its May 7 news post. The arXiv record remains publicly accessible with the author list, abstract and submission history. (nature.com) (newshub.sustech.edu.cn)