2D ferroelectric narrow-bandgap semiconductor Wurtzite' type alpha-In2Se3 and its silicon-compatible growth

TL;DR

This paper reports the successful synthesis of large-scale wurtzite alpha-In2Se3 films on SiO2, revealing its narrow bandgap ferroelectric properties and potential for neuromorphic computing applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel in-situ growth method for wurtzite alpha-In2Se3 and characterizes its ferroelectric and optoelectronic properties, expanding the material's application scope.

Findings

Wurtzite alpha-In2Se3 can be synthesized on SiO2 substrates.

The material exhibits a tunable bandgap of 0.8-1.6 eV.

High recognition accuracy of 92.3% in neuromorphic pattern classification.

Abstract

2D van der Waals ferroelectrics, particularly alpha-In2Se3, have emerged as an attractive building block for next-generation information storage technologies due to their moderate band gap and robust ferroelectricity stabilized by dipole locking. alpha-In2Se3 can adopt either the distorted zincblende or wurtzite structures; however, the wurtzite phase has yet to be experimental-ly validated, and its large-scale synthesis poses significant challenges. Here, we report an in-situ transport growth of centimeter-scale wurtzite type alpha-In2Se3 films directly on SiO2 substrates using a process combining pulsed laser deposition and chemical vapor deposition. We demonstrate that it is a narrow bandgap ferroelectric semiconductor, featuring a Curie tem-perature exceeding 620 K, a tunable bandgap (0.8-1.6 eV) modulated by charged domain walls, and a large optical absorption coefficient of 1.3 times 10 powers 6 per centemeter. Moreover, light absorption promotes the dynamic conductance range, linearity, and symmetry of the synapse devices, leading to a high recognition accuracy of 92.3 percent in a supervised pattern classification task for neuromorphic computing. Our findings demonstrate a ferroelectric polymorphism of In2Se3, highlighting its potential in ferroelectric synapses for neuromorphic computing.