Nonvolatile Ferroelectric Memory with Lateral β/α/β In2Se3 Heterojunctions

Siyuan Wan; Qi Peng; Ziyu Wu; Yangbo Zhou

doi:10.1021/acsami.2c04032

Nonvolatile Ferroelectric Memory with Lateral β/α/β In₂Se₃ Heterojunctions

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 Jun 8;14(22):25693-25700. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c04032. Epub 2022 May 27.

Authors

Siyuan Wan^{1

2}, Qi Peng^{1

2}, Ziyu Wu^{1

2}, Yangbo Zhou^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Physics and Materials Science, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China.
² Jiangxi Key Laboratory for Two-dimensional Materials and Devices, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China.

PMID: 35623065
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c04032

Abstract

The electric dipole locking effect observed in van der Waals (vdW) ferroelectric α-In₂Se₃ has resulted in a surge of applied research in electronics with nonvolatile functionality. However, ferroelectric tunnel junctions with advantages of lower power consumption and faster writing/reading operations have not been realized in α-In₂Se₃. Here, we demonstrate the tunneling electroresistance effect in a lateral β/α/β In₂Se₃ heterojunction built by local laser irradiation. Switchable in-plane polarizations of the vdW ferroelectric control the tunneling conductance of the heterojunction device by 4000% of magnitude. The electronic logic bit can be represented and stored with different orientations of electric dipoles. This prototype enables a new approach to rewritable nonvolatile memory with in-plane ferroelectricity in vdW 2D materials.

Keywords: In2Se3; local laser irradiation; nonvolatile ferroelectric memory; phase transformation; tunneling electroresistance effect.