Ferroelectric switching of interfacial dipoles in α-RuCl<sub>3</sub>/graphene heterostructure.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41495065.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-68072-x and PMC identifier 12868779.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC-ND.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
We demonstrate electrically switchable, non-volatile dipoles in graphene/thin hBN/α-RuCl<sub>3</sub> heterostructures, stabilized purely by interfacial charge transfer across an atomically thin dielectric barrier. This mechanism requires no sliding or twisting to explicitly break inversion symmetry and produces robust ferroelectric-like hysteresis loops that emerge prominently near 30 K. Systematic measurements under strong in-plane and out-of-plane magnetic fields reveal negligible effects on the hysteresis characteristics, confirming that the primary mechanism driving the dipole switching is electrostatic. Our findings establish a distinct and robust route to electrically tunable ferroelectric phenomena in van der Waals heterostructures, opening opportunities to explore the interplay between interfacial charge transfer and temperature-tuned barrier crossing of dipole states at the atomic scale.