Room-temperature ferroelectrically switchable quantum geometry in few-layer WTe₂ for complementary in-memory computing.

Abstract

Quantum geometry, describing the inherent geometric structure of electron wavefunctions in momentum space, transcends the traditional charge degree of freedom and provides a novel physical basis for information encoding and processing. The key to such new computing paradigms is the nonvolatile electrical programming of quantum geometric states at room temperature, which, however, has not been established. Here, we demonstrate ferroelectrically switchable quantum geometry in few-layer WTe₂, which uniquely enables complementary convolutional processing. By employing the intrinsic coupling between ferroelectric polarization and quantum geometry in few-layer WTe₂, we show that the second- and third-order nonlinear anomalous Hall effects (NLAHE) can be deterministically and electrically switched in a nonvolatile and correlated manner. The switching is robust at room temperature for ~10⁴ cycles and retention of ~10⁵s. Furthermore, leveraging the opposite switching behaviors of second- and third-order NLAHE at room temperature, we demonstrate complementary in-memory computing and implement a hardware-level complementary convolution kernel. This kernel overcomes the inherent directional specificity of conventional convolutional networks and achieves a texture recognition accuracy of 98%, thereby illustrating a viable pathway towards physics-native computing through exploiting exotic physics in quantum materials.