High-Tc Layered Ferrielectric Crystals by Coherent Spinodal Decomposition

Michael A. Susner, Alex Belianinov, Albina Borisevich, Qian He, Marius Chyasnavichyus, Hakan Demir, David S. Sholl, Panchapakesan Ganesh, Douglas L. Abernathy, Michael A. McGuire, Petro Maksymovych

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

71 Scopus citations

Abstract

Research in the rapidly developing field of 2D electronic materials has thus far been focused on metallic and semiconducting materials. However, complementary dielectric materials such as nonlinear dielectrics are needed to enable realistic device architectures. Candidate materials require tunable dielectric properties and pathways for heterostructure assembly. Here we report on a family of cation-deficient transition metal thiophosphates whose unique chemistry makes them a viable prospect for these applications. In these materials, naturally occurring ferrielectric heterostructures composed of centrosymmetric In4/3P2S6 and ferrielectrically active CuInP2S6 are realized by controllable chemical phase separation in van der Waals bonded single crystals. CuInP2S6 by itself is a layered ferrielectric with a ferrielectric transition temperature (Tc) just over room temperature, which rapidly decreases with homogeneous doping. Surprisingly, in our composite materials, the ferrielectric Tc of the polar CuInP2S6 phase increases. This effect is enabled by unique spinodal decomposition that retains the overall van der Waals layered morphology of the crystal, but chemically separates CuInP2S6 and In4/3P2S6 within each layer. The average spatial periodicity of the distinct chemical phases can be finely controlled by altering the composition and/or synthesis conditions. One intriguing prospect for such layered spinodal alloys is large volume synthesis of 2D in-plane heterostructures with periodically alternating polar and nonpolar phases.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)12365-12373
Number of pages9
JournalACS Nano
Volume9
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 13 2015

Funding

Research was sponsored by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (P.M., P.G., M.C., H.D., D.L.A., A.B., A.Y.B., Q.H., M.A.S., and M.A.M.). PFM measurements were carried out at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is sponsored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy. A portion of this article is based upon work performed using computational resources supported by the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory''s Joint Institute for Computational Sciences. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, or the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences.

Keywords

  • 2D ferrielectric
  • 2D heterostructures
  • chalcogenides
  • spinodal decomposition
  • transition metal thiophosphate

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