Room-temperature ferroelectric, piezoelectric and resistive switching behaviors of single-element Te nanowires
Ferroelectrics are essential in memory devices for multi-bit storage and high-density integration. Ferroelectricity mainly exists in compounds but rare in single-element materials due to their lack of spontaneous polarization in the latter. However, we report a room-temperature ferroelectricity in quasi-one-dimensional Te nanowires. Piezoelectric characteristics, ferroelectric loops and domain reversals are clearly observed. We attribute the ferroelectricity to the ion displacement created by the interlayer interaction between lone-pair electrons. Ferroelectric polarization can induce a strong field effect on the transport along the Te chain, giving rise to a self-gated ferroelectric field-effect transistor. By utilizing ferroelectric Te nanowire as channel, the device exhibits high mobility (~220 cm<sup>2</sup>·V<sup>-1</sup>·s<sup>-1</sup>), continuous-variable resistive states can be observed with long-term retention (>10<sup>5</sup> s), fast speed (<20 ns) and high-density storage (>1.92 TB/cm<sup>2</sup>). Our work provides opportunities for single-element ferroelectrics and advances practical applications such as ultrahigh-density data storage and computing-in-memory devices.
Authors
- Shuainan Gong
- Chunlan Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9944-4255)
- Ju Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8494-3174)
- Run Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3816-8752)
- Dapeng Cui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8824-2922)
- Xiaoshan Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4200-3587)
- Demid Sychev (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9105-4693)
- Yaping Qi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0367-3695)
- Jiayong Zhang
- Yong P. Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7356-4179)
- Zhenqi Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-1805-147X)
- Yu‐Cheng Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9936-3893)
- Zhenping Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2986-8068)
- Ran Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6725-6428)
- Xinran Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3975-1667)
- Hongbin Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6740-1632)
- Hang Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0132-4058)
- Jinlei Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3898-6322)
- Mohammad A. Sadi
- Lin Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3033-4792)
Institutions
- Macau University of Science and Technology (MO)
- Shanghai University (CN)
- Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (CN)
- Tohoku University (JP)
- Aarhus University (DK)
- Purdue University West Lafayette (US)
- Suzhou University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Advanced Institute of Materials Science (JP)
- Suzhou Research Institute (CN)
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures (CN)
- Intelligent Health (United Kingdom) (GB)
- Zaozhuang University (CN)
- University of Tennessee at Knoxville (US)
- Southeast University (CN)
- Nanjing University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-09-02
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52062-6
- Citations
- 31
- Primary Topic
- 2D Materials and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.63
Funders
- University of Southern California
- Purdue University
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Government of Jiangsu Province
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province
- Fundo para o Desenvolvimento das Ciências e da Tecnologia
- Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- Tohoku University Center for Gender Equality Promotion