Observation of room-temperature ferroelectricity in elemental Te nanowires

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of room-temperature ferroelectricity in elemental tellurium nanowires, demonstrating potential for low-power memory devices and novel electronic applications.

Contribution

It is the first to observe ferroelectricity at room temperature in elemental Te nanowires, revealing a new class of elemental ferroelectrics with polar structures.

Findings

Room-temperature ferroelectric loops observed in Te nanowires

Ferroelectricity attributed to ion displacement from interlayer interactions

Te nanowires enable nonvolatile memory with high mobility and multilevel states

Abstract

Ferroelectrics are essential in low-dimensional memory devices for multi-bit storage and high-density integration. A polar structure is a necessary premise for ferroelectricity, mainly existing in compounds. However, it is usually rare in elemental materials, causing a lack of spontaneous electric polarization. Here, we report an unexpected room-temperature ferroelectricity in few-chain Te nanowires. Out-of-plane ferroelectric loops and domain reversal are observed by piezoresponse force microscopy. Through density functional theory, we attribute the ferroelectricity to the ion-displacement created by the interlayer interaction between lone pair electrons. Ferroelectric polarization can induce a strong field effect on the transport along the Te chain, supporting a self-gated field-effect transistor. It enables a nonvolatile memory with high in-plane mobility, zero supply voltage, multilevel resistive states, and a high on/off ratio. Our work provides new opportunities for elemental ferroelectrics with polar structures and paves a way towards applications such as low-power dissipation electronics and computing-in-memory devices.