Intrinsic ferroelectric CuVP<sub>2</sub>S<sub>6</sub> for potential applications in neuromorphic recognition and translation.

Zhao, Chunyu; Dong, Weikang; Yang, Yang; Yu, Hongbin; Duan, Jingyi; Kong, Denan; Li, Kangshu; Han, Xiaocang et al. · Nat Commun · 2025

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Two-dimensional ferroelectric materials hold promises for non-volatile memory and integrated electronic circuits. However, direct synthesizing and understanding the ferroelectric mechanism of two-dimensional room-temperature ferroelectrics remains challenging. Here, we report the synthesis of intrinsic room-temperature ferroelectric CuVP<sub>2</sub>S<sub>6</sub> via spatially confined chemical vapor deposition method, as demonstrated by second harmonic generation and piezoresponse force microscopy measurements. Importantly, we experimentally uncover the ferroelectric mechanism of CuVP<sub>2</sub>S<sub>6</sub>, which originates from the movement of Cu ions, as confirmed by scanning transmission electron microscopy. Additionally, we construct an optoelectronic CuVP<sub>2</sub>S<sub>6</sub> synaptic device, which enables a smooth transition from optical character recognition to neural machine translation using a transformer architecture. Our study not only elucidates the ferroelectric mechanism of two-dimensional metal phosphorus sulfide compounds but also integrates optical character recognition and neural machine translation within a single material, offering significant opportunities for neuromorphic computing systems.