Stacking-induced ferroelectricity in tetralayer graphene

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Singh, Amit, Xu, Shuigang, Sarsfield, Patrick Johansen, Nunez, Pablo Diaz, Wang, Ziwei, Slizovskiy, Sergey, Kay, Nicholas, Yin, Jun, Mayamei, Yashar, Taniguchi, Takashi, Watanabe, Kenji, Yang, Qian, Novoselov, Kostya S., Falko, Vladimir I., Mishchenko, Artem
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Singh, Amit
Xu, Shuigang
Sarsfield, Patrick Johansen
Nunez, Pablo Diaz
Wang, Ziwei
Slizovskiy, Sergey
Kay, Nicholas
Yin, Jun
Mayamei, Yashar
Taniguchi, Takashi
Watanabe, Kenji
Yang, Qian
Novoselov, Kostya S.
Falko, Vladimir I.
Mishchenko, Artem
author_facet Singh, Amit
Xu, Shuigang
Sarsfield, Patrick Johansen
Nunez, Pablo Diaz
Wang, Ziwei
Slizovskiy, Sergey
Kay, Nicholas
Yin, Jun
Mayamei, Yashar
Taniguchi, Takashi
Watanabe, Kenji
Yang, Qian
Novoselov, Kostya S.
Falko, Vladimir I.
Mishchenko, Artem
contents Recent studies have reported emergent ferroelectric behavior in twisted or moiré-engineered graphene-based van der Waals heterostructures, yet the microscopic origin of this effect remains under debate. Pristine mono- or few-layer graphene lacks a permanent dipole due to its centrosymmetric lattice, making the emergence of ferroelectricity unlikely. However, mixed-stacked graphene, such as the ABCB tetralayer configuration, breaks both inversion and mirror symmetry and has been theoretically predicted to support electrically switchable dipoles. ABCB graphene represents the simplest natural graphene polytype exhibiting intrinsic out-of-plane polarization, arising from asymmetric charge carrier distribution across its layers. Here, we report robust ferroelectric behavior in dual-gated, non-aligned ABCB tetralayer graphene encapsulated in hexagonal boron nitride. The device exhibits pronounced hysteresis in resistance under both top and bottom gate modulation, with the effect persisting up to room temperature. This hysteresis originates from reversible layer-polarized charge reordering, driven by gate-induced transitions between ABCB and BCBA stacking configurations -- without requiring moiré superlattices. Our findings establish stacking-order-induced symmetry breaking as a fundamental route to electronic ferroelectricity in graphene and open pathways for non-volatile memory applications based on naturally occurring mixed-stacked multilayer graphene.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_07935
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Stacking-induced ferroelectricity in tetralayer graphene
Singh, Amit
Xu, Shuigang
Sarsfield, Patrick Johansen
Nunez, Pablo Diaz
Wang, Ziwei
Slizovskiy, Sergey
Kay, Nicholas
Yin, Jun
Mayamei, Yashar
Taniguchi, Takashi
Watanabe, Kenji
Yang, Qian
Novoselov, Kostya S.
Falko, Vladimir I.
Mishchenko, Artem
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Recent studies have reported emergent ferroelectric behavior in twisted or moiré-engineered graphene-based van der Waals heterostructures, yet the microscopic origin of this effect remains under debate. Pristine mono- or few-layer graphene lacks a permanent dipole due to its centrosymmetric lattice, making the emergence of ferroelectricity unlikely. However, mixed-stacked graphene, such as the ABCB tetralayer configuration, breaks both inversion and mirror symmetry and has been theoretically predicted to support electrically switchable dipoles. ABCB graphene represents the simplest natural graphene polytype exhibiting intrinsic out-of-plane polarization, arising from asymmetric charge carrier distribution across its layers. Here, we report robust ferroelectric behavior in dual-gated, non-aligned ABCB tetralayer graphene encapsulated in hexagonal boron nitride. The device exhibits pronounced hysteresis in resistance under both top and bottom gate modulation, with the effect persisting up to room temperature. This hysteresis originates from reversible layer-polarized charge reordering, driven by gate-induced transitions between ABCB and BCBA stacking configurations -- without requiring moiré superlattices. Our findings establish stacking-order-induced symmetry breaking as a fundamental route to electronic ferroelectricity in graphene and open pathways for non-volatile memory applications based on naturally occurring mixed-stacked multilayer graphene.
title Stacking-induced ferroelectricity in tetralayer graphene
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.07935