Interfacial Ferroelectricity by van-der-Waals Sliding

Despite their ionic nature, many layered diatomic crystals avoid internal electric polarization by forming a centrosymmetric lattice at their optimal anti-parallel van-der-Waals stacking. Here, we report a stable ferroelectric order emerging at the interface between two naturally-grown flakes of hex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2020-10
Main Authors: Stern, Maayan Vizner, Waschitz, Yuval, Cao, Wei, Nevo, Iftach, Watanabe, Kenji, Taniguchi, Takashi, Sela, Eran, Urbakh, Michael, Hod, Oded, Moshe Ben Shalom
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boron nitride
Crystal lattices
Domains
Electric polarization
Ferroelectricity
Sliding
Switching
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Despite their ionic nature, many layered diatomic crystals avoid internal electric polarization by forming a centrosymmetric lattice at their optimal anti-parallel van-der-Waals stacking. Here, we report a stable ferroelectric order emerging at the interface between two naturally-grown flakes of hexagonal-boron-nitride, which are stacked together in a metastable non-centrosymmetric parallel orientation. We observe alternating domains of inverted normal polarization, caused by a lateral shift of one lattice site between the domains. Reversible polarization switching coupled to lateral sliding is achieved by scanning a biased tip above the surface. Our calculations trace the origin of the phenomenon to a subtle interplay between charge redistribution and ionic displacement, and our minimal cohesion model predicts further venues to explore the unique "slidetronics" switching.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2010.05182