TY - JOUR
T1 - Polytype switching by super-lubricant van der Waals cavity arrays
AU - Yeo, Youngki
AU - Sharaby, Yoav
AU - Roy, Nirmal
AU - Raab, Noam
AU - Watanabe, Kenji
AU - Taniguchi, Takashi
AU - Ben Shalom, Moshe
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2025.
PY - 2025/2/13
Y1 - 2025/2/13
N2 - Expanding the performance of field-effect devices is a key challenge of the ever-growing chip industry at the core of current technologies1. Non-volatile multiferroic transistors that control atomic movements rather than purely electronic distribution are highly desired2. Recently, a field-effect control over structural transitions was achieved in commensurate stacking configurations of honeycomb van der Waals (vdW) polytypes by sliding boundary strips between oppositely polarized domains3, 4, 5–6. This ferroelectric hysteretic response, however, relied on pre-existing dislocation strips between relatively large micron-scale domains, severely limiting practical implementations3,7,8. Here we report the robust electric switching of single-domain polytypes in nanometre-scale islands embedded in super-lubricant vdW arrays. We etch cavities into a thin layered spacer and then encapsulate it with functional flakes. The flakes above/under the lattice-mismatched spacer sag and touch at each cavity to form islands of commensurate and metastable polytype configurations. By imaging the polarization of the polytypes, we observe nucleation and annihilation of boundary strips and geometry-adaptable ferroelectric hysteresis loops. Using mechanical stress, we further control the position of boundary strips, modify marginal twist angles and nucleate patterns of polar domain. This super-lubricant arrays of polytype (SLAP) concept suggests ‘slidetronics’ device applications such as elastic-coupled neuromorphic memory cells and non-volatile multiferroic tunnelling transistors and programmable response by designing the size, shape and symmetry of the islands and of the arrays9.
AB - Expanding the performance of field-effect devices is a key challenge of the ever-growing chip industry at the core of current technologies1. Non-volatile multiferroic transistors that control atomic movements rather than purely electronic distribution are highly desired2. Recently, a field-effect control over structural transitions was achieved in commensurate stacking configurations of honeycomb van der Waals (vdW) polytypes by sliding boundary strips between oppositely polarized domains3, 4, 5–6. This ferroelectric hysteretic response, however, relied on pre-existing dislocation strips between relatively large micron-scale domains, severely limiting practical implementations3,7,8. Here we report the robust electric switching of single-domain polytypes in nanometre-scale islands embedded in super-lubricant vdW arrays. We etch cavities into a thin layered spacer and then encapsulate it with functional flakes. The flakes above/under the lattice-mismatched spacer sag and touch at each cavity to form islands of commensurate and metastable polytype configurations. By imaging the polarization of the polytypes, we observe nucleation and annihilation of boundary strips and geometry-adaptable ferroelectric hysteresis loops. Using mechanical stress, we further control the position of boundary strips, modify marginal twist angles and nucleate patterns of polar domain. This super-lubricant arrays of polytype (SLAP) concept suggests ‘slidetronics’ device applications such as elastic-coupled neuromorphic memory cells and non-volatile multiferroic tunnelling transistors and programmable response by designing the size, shape and symmetry of the islands and of the arrays9.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85218074521&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41586-024-08380-2
DO - 10.1038/s41586-024-08380-2
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C2 - 39910303
AN - SCOPUS:85218074521
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 638
SP - 389
EP - 393
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 8050
M1 - 4449
ER -