Electrically and mechanically driven rotation of polar spirals in a relaxor ferroelectric polymer

Mengfan Guo; Erxiang Xu; Houbing Huang; Changqing Guo; Hetian Chen; Shulin Chen; Shan He; Le Zhou; Jing Ma; Zhonghui Shen; Ben Xu; Di Yi; Peng Gao; Ce-Wen Nan; Neil D Mathur; Yang Shen

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-44395-5

Electrically and mechanically driven rotation of polar spirals in a relaxor ferroelectric polymer

Nat Commun. 2024 Jan 8;15(1):348. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-44395-5.

Authors

Mengfan Guo^#^{1

2}, Erxiang Xu^#³, Houbing Huang^#⁴, Changqing Guo⁴, Hetian Chen³, Shulin Chen⁵, Shan He³, Le Zhou³, Jing Ma³, Zhonghui Shen⁶, Ben Xu⁷, Di Yi³, Peng Gao⁸, Ce-Wen Nan³, Neil D Mathur⁹, Yang Shen^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Lab of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, China. mg2129@cam.ac.uk.
² Department of Materials Science, University of Cambridge, 27 Charles Babbage Road, CB3 0FS, Cambridge, UK. mg2129@cam.ac.uk.
³ State Key Lab of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, China.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering & Advanced Research Institute of Multidisciplinary Science; Beijing Institute of Technology, 100081, Beijing, China.
⁵ Changsha Semiconductor Technology and Application Innovation Research Institute, College of Semiconductors (College of Integrated Circuits), Hunan University, 410082, Changsha, China.
⁶ International School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, 430070, Wuhan, China.
⁷ Department of Graduate School, China Academy of Engineering Physics, 100193, Beijing, China.
⁸ Electron Microscopy Laboratory and International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
⁹ Department of Materials Science, University of Cambridge, 27 Charles Babbage Road, CB3 0FS, Cambridge, UK. ndm12@cam.ac.uk.
¹⁰ State Key Lab of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, China. shyang_mse@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
¹¹ Center for Flexible Electronics Technology, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, China. shyang_mse@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Topology created by quasi-continuous spatial variations of a local polarization direction represents an exotic state of matter, but field-driven manipulation has been hitherto limited to creation and destruction. Here we report that relatively small electric or mechanical fields can drive the non-volatile rotation of polar spirals in discretized microregions of the relaxor ferroelectric polymer poly(vinylidene fluoride-ran-trifluoroethylene). These polar spirals arise from the asymmetric Coulomb interaction between vertically aligned helical polymer chains, and can be rotated in-plane through various angles with robust retention. Given also that our manipulation of topological order can be detected via infrared absorption, our work suggests a new direction for the application of complex materials.

Grants and funding

52388201/National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)