Reversible flexoelectric domain engineering at the nanoscale in van der Waals ferroelectrics

The universal flexoelectric effect in solids provides a mechanical pathway for controlling electric polarization in ultrathin ferroelectrics, eliminating potential material breakdown from a giant electric field at the nanoscale. One challenge of this approach is arbitrary implementation, which is st...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 4556 - 9
Main Authors: Liu, Heng, Lai, Qinglin, Fu, Jun, Zhang, Shijie, Fu, Zhaoming, Zeng, Hualing
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 29.05.2024
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Portfolio
Subjects:
639/301/119/996
639/766/119/996
Control methods
Data storage
Electric fields
Electric polarization
Ferroelectric materials
Ferroelectricity
Ferroelectrics
Flexibility
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Polarization
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Substrates
ISSN:2041-1723, 2041-1723
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The universal flexoelectric effect in solids provides a mechanical pathway for controlling electric polarization in ultrathin ferroelectrics, eliminating potential material breakdown from a giant electric field at the nanoscale. One challenge of this approach is arbitrary implementation, which is strongly hindered by one-way switching capability. Here, utilizing the innate flexibility of van der Waals materials, we demonstrate that ferroelectric polarization and domain structures can be mechanically, reversibly, and arbitrarily switched in two-dimensional CuInP 2 S 6 via the nano-tip imprinting technique. The bidirectional flexoelectric control is attributed to the extended tip-induced deformation in two-dimensional systems with innate flexibility at the atomic scale. By employing an elastic substrate, artificial ferroelectric nanodomains with lateral sizes as small as ~80 nm are noninvasively generated in an area of 1 μm 2 , equal to a density of 31.4 Gbit/in 2 . Our results highlight the potential applications of van der Waals ferroelectrics in data storage and flexoelectronics. Flexoelectric effect may offer a voltage-free method to control the polarization in 2D ferroelectrics, but its widespread application remains challenging. Here, the authors report an approach to arbitrarily switch the ferroelectricity in 2D CuInP 2 S 6 .
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ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-024-48892-z