Domain-Wall-Mediated Ultralow-Barrier Sliding and Pinning in Ferroelectric Moiré Superlattices Revealed by Machine Learning

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Hauptverfasser: Li, Jia-Wen, Meng, Sheng, Shi, Xinghua, Zhang, Jin, Fang, Wei-Hai
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Li, Jia-Wen
Meng, Sheng
Shi, Xinghua
Zhang, Jin
Fang, Wei-Hai
author_facet Li, Jia-Wen
Meng, Sheng
Shi, Xinghua
Zhang, Jin
Fang, Wei-Hai
contents Sliding ferroelectrics built from stacked nonpolar monolayers enable out-of-plane polarization and unconventional switching via interlayer sliding, yet the microscopic sliding dynamics remain unclear. Using machine-learning molecular dynamics, we reveal spontaneous thermally driven interlayer sliding in ferroelectric MoS2 moiré superlattices, with relative velocities on the order of 1 m/s at 300 K. Instead of rigid translation of the entire bilayer, the motion appears as a global drift of the moiré pattern. Such thermally driven sliding is inconsistent with the meV/atom-scale rigid-sliding barrier. In contrast, when constrained relaxation is allowed, the sliding proceeds along an almost barrierless pathway that directly reproduces the global drift of the moiré pattern. Furthermore, sulfur vacancies trigger a sliding-to-pinning transition, with about 0.1% S vacancies already sufficient to convert the long-range sliding into localized oscillations. Notably, these phenomena are not restricted to small twist angles, but arise generically in twisting-induced multidomain structures. These results reveal that the sliding process is governed by a domain-wall-mediated collective reconstruction pathway with an ultralow barrier, rather than rigid layer translation, deepening the understanding of microscopic dynamics in moiré superlattices and sliding ferroelectrics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_20277
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Domain-Wall-Mediated Ultralow-Barrier Sliding and Pinning in Ferroelectric Moiré Superlattices Revealed by Machine Learning
Li, Jia-Wen
Meng, Sheng
Shi, Xinghua
Zhang, Jin
Fang, Wei-Hai
Materials Science
Computational Physics
Sliding ferroelectrics built from stacked nonpolar monolayers enable out-of-plane polarization and unconventional switching via interlayer sliding, yet the microscopic sliding dynamics remain unclear. Using machine-learning molecular dynamics, we reveal spontaneous thermally driven interlayer sliding in ferroelectric MoS2 moiré superlattices, with relative velocities on the order of 1 m/s at 300 K. Instead of rigid translation of the entire bilayer, the motion appears as a global drift of the moiré pattern. Such thermally driven sliding is inconsistent with the meV/atom-scale rigid-sliding barrier. In contrast, when constrained relaxation is allowed, the sliding proceeds along an almost barrierless pathway that directly reproduces the global drift of the moiré pattern. Furthermore, sulfur vacancies trigger a sliding-to-pinning transition, with about 0.1% S vacancies already sufficient to convert the long-range sliding into localized oscillations. Notably, these phenomena are not restricted to small twist angles, but arise generically in twisting-induced multidomain structures. These results reveal that the sliding process is governed by a domain-wall-mediated collective reconstruction pathway with an ultralow barrier, rather than rigid layer translation, deepening the understanding of microscopic dynamics in moiré superlattices and sliding ferroelectrics.
title Domain-Wall-Mediated Ultralow-Barrier Sliding and Pinning in Ferroelectric Moiré Superlattices Revealed by Machine Learning
topic Materials Science
Computational Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.20277