Ferroic 2D Materials and Applications

Layered two-dimensional (2D) materials occur in many electronic varieties ranging from the standard metals, insulators, and semiconductors to topological insulators, superconductors, ferromagnets, anti-ferromagnets, ferroelectrics, charge density waves etc. Recently, the discovery of ferroelectric and ferromagnetic orders in 2D materials in both in-plane and out-of-plane directions have presented an important opportunity for investigation both from a fundamental science and an applied perspective in computing, information storage as well as photonic and optoelectronics devices. In addition, coupling of 2D materials with 3D ferroic materials have opened new opportunities as well.

At a fundamental level, the 2D confinement in such electronic and magnetic phases results in formation of novel electronic band alignment as well as spintronic phenomena. In many case excitations by photons in materials with ferroic order produces strong interaction or localization of electronic or lattice excitations such as excitons and phonons with electric dipoles or spins creating rich diversity of new physical phenomena. On the applied side, the large surface to volume ratio of 2D layers results in a very high sensitivity of these ferroic to external perturbations such as dielectric environment, strain, temperature as well as electric and magnetic fields which makes them suitable for both computing, memory/information storage, and sensing applications. Further, their van der Waals nature enables the coupling electric and magnetic ferroic orders for creating artificial multiferroic heterostructures.

The focus of this Collection is on the experimental and theoretical study of such ferroelectric, antiferroelectric, ferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic, and antiferromagnetic 2D materials and their heterostructures with other ferroic 2D and 3D materials as well as their applications into devices.