Insulating Behavior at the Neutrality Point in Single-Layer Graphene

The fate of the low-temperature conductance at the charge-neutrality (Dirac) point in a single sheet of graphene on boron nitride is investigated down to 20 mK. As the temperature is lowered, the peak resistivity diverges with a power-law behavior and becomes as high as several megohms per square at the lowest temperature, in contrast with the commonly observed saturation of the conductivity. As a perpendicular magnetic field is applied, our device remains insulating and directly transitions to the broken-valley-symmetry, nu = 0 quantum Hall state, indicating that the insulating behavior we observe at zero magnetic field is a result of broken valley symmetry. Finally we discuss the possible origins of this effect.