Mixed-Stacking Few-Layer Graphene as an Elemental Weak Ferroelectric Material

Abstract

Ferroelectricity (Valasek, J. Phys. Rev. 1921, 17, 475) - a spontaneous formation of electric polarisation - is a solid state phenomenon, usually, associated with ionic compounds or complex materials. Here we show that, atypically for elemental solids, few-layer graphenes can host an equilibrium out-of-plane electric polarisation, switchable by sliding the constituent graphene sheets. The systems hosting such effect include mixed-stacking tetralayers and thicker (5-9 layers) rhombohedral graphitic films with a twin boundary in the middle of a flake. The predicted electric polarisation would also appear in marginally (small-angle) twisted few-layer flakes, where lattice reconstruction would give rise to networks of mesoscale domains with alternating value and sign of out-of-plane polarisation.

arXiv comment25 pages, 7 figures

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Cited by in corpus (13)

• Atypical sliding and Moire ferroelectricity in pure multilayer graphene
• Excitonic signatures of ferroelectric order in parallel-stacked MoS${}_2$
• Polarization Saturation in Multi-layered Interfacial Ferroelectrics
• Inversion symmetry-broken tetralayer graphene probed by second harmonic generation
• Spin and Charge Fluctuation Induced Pairing in ABCB Tetralayer Graphene
• Ferroelectricity in twisted double bilayer graphene
• Built-in Bernal gap in large-angle-twisted monolayer-bilayer graphene
• Supercell Wannier functions and a faithful low-energy model for Bernal bilayer graphene
• Inducing Berry Curvature Dipole in Multilayer Graphene through Inhomogeneous Interlayer Sliding
• Cluster Sliding Ferroelectricity in Trilayer Quasi-Hexagonal C${}_{60}$
• Sliding ferroelectricity in a bulk misfit layer compound (PbS)${}_{1.18}$VS${}_2$
• Identification of graphite with perfect rhombohedral stacking by electronic Raman scattering
• The interplay of ferroelectricity and magneto-transport in non-magnetic moiré superlattices