Picometer‐Level In Situ Manipulation of Ferroelectric Polarization in Van der Waals layered InSe
Ferroelectric 2D van der Waals (vdW) layered materials are attracting increasing attention due to their potential applications in next-generation nanoelectronics and in-memory computing with polarization-dependent functionalities. Despite the critical role of polarization in governing ferroelectricity behaviors, its origin and relation with local structures in 2D vdW layered materials have not been fully elucidated so far. Here, intralayer sliding of approximately six degrees within each quadruple-layer of the prototype 2D vdW ferroelectrics InSe is directly observed and manipulated using sub-angstrom resolution imaging and in situ biasing in an aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope. The in situ electric manipulation further indicates that the reversal of intralayer sliding can be achieved by altering the electric field direction. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the reversible picometer-level intralayer sliding is responsible for switchable out-of-plane polarization. The observation and manipulation of intralayer sliding demonstrate the structural origin of ferroelectricity in InSe and establish a dynamic structural variation model for future investigations on more 2D ferroelectric materials.
Authors
- Ning Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3233-1555)
- Qiang Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9279-7779)
- Xin Zeng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3292-0990)
- Songyang Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6264-2832)
- Hanbin Gao
- Zhihai Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4938-4490)
- Changming Ke (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2018-2441)
- Liming Xie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8190-8325)
- Hongwei Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0832-8946)
- Shi Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8488-4848)
- Lizhi Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6842-9167)
- Ziyuan Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2203-612X)
- Jianfeng Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2201-3219)
- Juanxia Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5356-5070)
- Yue Gong
- Jiawei Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3873-8003)
- Xinfeng Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7662-7171)
Institutions
- Westlake University (CN)
- National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (CN)
- Institute of Physics (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Renmin University of China (CN)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Materials
- Published
- 2024-10-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202404628
- Citations
- 13
- Primary Topic
- 2D Materials and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.52
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- National Key Research and Development Program of China