Room-temperature multiferroicity in sliding van der Waals semiconductors with sub-0.3 V switching

The search for van der Waals (vdW) multiferroic materials has been challenging but also holds great potential for the next-generation multifunctional nanoelectronics. The group-IV monochalcogenide, with an anisotropic puckered structure and an intrinsic in-plane polarization at room temperature, manifests itself as a promising candidate with coupled ferroelectric and ferroelastic order as the basis for multiferroic behavior. Unlike the intrinsic centrosymmetric AB stacking, we demonstrate a multiferroic phase of tin selenide (SnSe), where the inversion symmetry breaking is maintained in AA-stacked multilayers over a wide range of thicknesses. We observe that an interlayer-sliding-induced out-of-plane (OOP) ferroelectric polarization couples with the in-plane (IP) one, making it possible to control out-of-plane polarization via in-plane electric field and vice versa. Notably, thickness scaling yields a sub-0.3 V ferroelectric switching, which promises future low-power-consumption applications. Furthermore, coexisting armchair- and zigzag-like structural domains are imaged under electron microscopy, providing experimental evidence for the degenerate ferroelastic ground states theoretically predicted. Non-centrosymmetric SnSe, as the first layered multiferroic at room temperature, provides a novel platform not only to explore the interactions between elementary excitations with controlled symmetries, but also to efficiently tune the device performance via external electric and mechanical stress.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature Communications
Published
2025-04-17
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58009-9
Citations
9
Primary Topic
2D Materials and Applications
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
4.66

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article

Room-temperature multiferroicity in sliding van der Waals semiconductors with sub-0.3 V switching

Tao Zhou, Ashish Verma Penumatcha, Shancheng Yan, R. Ramesh et al.
9 citations
Nature Communications
2D Materials and Applications
4.66
article

Room-temperature multiferroicity in sliding van der Waals semiconductors with sub-0.3 V switching

Tao Zhou, Ashish Verma Penumatcha, Shancheng Yan, R. Ramesh, Xiaoxi Huang, Jie Yao, Emory M. Chan, Takashi Taniguchi, Linghan Zhu, Kenji Watanabe, Chia-Ching Lin, Penghong Ci, Yuzi Liu, Ian A. Young, Junqiao Wu, Fanhao Meng, Yuhang Cai, Kaichen Dong, Rui Chen, Yin Liu, Yang Li, Hongrui Zhang, Tiancheng Zhang, Xilong Xu, Jiazhen Chen, Jingcheng Zhou, Fuyi Yang, Xianzhe Chen
article en
9 citations

Abstract

The search for van der Waals (vdW) multiferroic materials has been challenging but also holds great potential for the next-generation multifunctional nanoelectronics. The group-IV monochalcogenide, with an anisotropic puckered structure and an intrinsic in-plane polarization at room temperature, manifests itself as a promising candidate with coupled ferroelectric and ferroelastic order as the basis for multiferroic behavior. Unlike the intrinsic centrosymmetric AB stacking, we demonstrate a multiferroic phase of tin selenide (SnSe), where the inversion symmetry breaking is maintained in AA-stacked multilayers over a wide range of thicknesses. We observe that an interlayer-sliding-induced out-of-plane (OOP) ferroelectric polarization couples with the in-plane (IP) one, making it possible to control out-of-plane polarization via in-plane electric field and vice versa. Notably, thickness scaling yields a sub-0.3 V ferroelectric switching, which promises future low-power-consumption applications. Furthermore, coexisting armchair- and zigzag-like structural domains are imaged under electron microscopy, providing experimental evidence for the degenerate ferroelastic ground states theoretically predicted. Non-centrosymmetric SnSe, as the first layered multiferroic at room temperature, provides a novel platform not only to explore the interactions between elementary excitations with controlled symmetries, but also to efficiently tune the device performance via external electric and mechanical stress.

Nature CommunicationsVol. 16(1)
Argonne National Laboratory (US), Intel (United States) (US), North Carolina State University (US), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Washington University in St. Louis (US), National Institute for Materials Science (JP), Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications (CN), Ningbo Institute of Industrial Technology (CN), University of California, Berkeley (US)
U.S. Department of Energy, Intel Corporation, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 5%
2D Materials and Applications
4.66
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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