On electrically tunable stacking domains and ferroelectricity in moiré superlattices
Publication Date
2022Journal Title
npj 2D Materials and Applications
ISSN
2397-7132
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
6
Issue
1
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Bennett, D., & Remez, B. (2022). On electrically tunable stacking domains and ferroelectricity in moiré superlattices. npj 2D Materials and Applications, 6 (1) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41699-021-00281-6
Description
Funder: Cambridge Commonwealth, European and International Trust (Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003343
Abstract
It is well known that stacking domains form in moir\'e superlattices due to
the competition between the interlayer van der Waals forces and intralayer
elastic forces, which can be recognized as polar domains due to the local
spontaneous polarization in bilayers without centrosymmetry. We propose a
theoretical model which captures the effect of an applied electric field on the
domain structure. The coupling between the spontaneous polarization and field
leads to uneven relaxation of the domains, and a net polarization in the
superlattice at nonzero fields, which is sensitive to the moir\'e period. We
show that the dielectric response to the field reduces the stacking energy and
leads to softer domains in all bilayers. We then discuss the recent
observations of ferroelectricity in the context of our model.
Keywords
Article, /639/766/119/996, /639/301/357/1018, /639/301/1034/1038, article
Sponsorship
D. B would like to thank E. Artacho and I. Lebedeva for helpful discussions. D. B acknowledges funding from the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Computational Methods for Materials Science under grant number
EP/L015552/1. B. R gratefully acknowledges support from
the Cambridge International Trust.
Funder references
EPSRC (1948657)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L015552/1)
Identifiers
s41699-021-00281-6, 281
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41699-021-00281-6
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333140
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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