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  • Review Article
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Ferroelectric order in van der Waals layered materials

Nature Reviews Materials volume 8, pages 25–40 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Structurally different from conventional oxide ferroelectrics with rigid lattices, van der Waals (vdW) ferroelectrics have stable layered structures with a combination of strong intralayer and weak interlayer forces. These special atomic arrangements, in combination with the ferroelectric order, give rise to fundamentally new phenomena and functionalities, including downscaling limits, origin of the polarization and switching mechanisms. Furthermore, their easily stackable nature means that vdW ferroelectrics are readily integrable with highly dissimilar materials, such as industrial silicon substrates, without interfacial issues, and are thus regarded as attractive building blocks for post-Moore’s law electronics. In this Review, we consider the experimentally verified vdW ferroelectric systems by discussing their unique characteristics, such as quadruple-well potentials, metallic ferroelectricity and dipole-locking effects. We highlight the emerging field of engineered vdW ferroelectricity, created by artificially breaking centrosymmetry in stacks of otherwise nonpolar parent materials. Additionally, innovative device applications harnessing vdW ferroelectricity are showcased, including transistors able to beat the Boltzmann tyranny, nonvolatile memories and optoelectronic and flexible devices. Recent progress and existing challenges provide a perspective on future research directions and applications.

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Fig. 1: Quadruple-well potential vdW ferroelectric CuInP2S6.
Fig. 2: Metallic ferroelectricity in WTe2.
Fig. 3: Dipole-locking effect and antiferroelectric polar order in In2Se3.
Fig. 4: Crystal structure and evidence for ferroelectricity in SnS, SnSe, SnTe and MoTe2.
Fig. 5: Stacking-engineered ferroelectricity out of nonpolar vdW materials.
Fig. 6: Emerging nanoelectronics based on vdW ferroelectrics.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank J. Lv (National University of Singapore), K. Chang (Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences), X. Luo (Sun Yat-Sen University), W. Luo (University of Arkansas) and W. Ding (University of Science and Technology of China) for discussions. They acknowledge support by the Australian Research Council through Discovery Grants and the ARC Center of Excellence in Future Low Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET).

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  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Dawei Zhang, Peggy Schoenherr, Pankaj Sharma & Jan Seidel

  2. ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET), University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Peggy Schoenherr, Pankaj Sharma & Jan Seidel

  3. College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Pankaj Sharma

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Zhang, D., Schoenherr, P., Sharma, P. et al. Ferroelectric order in van der Waals layered materials. Nat Rev Mater 8, 25–40 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-022-00484-3

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