Tunnel junctions based on interfacial two dimensional ferroelectrics.

Van der Waals heterostructures have opened new opportunities to develop atomically thin (opto)electronic devices with a wide range of functionalities. The recent focus on manipulating the interlayer twist angle has led to the observation of out-of-plane room temperature ferroelectricity in twisted rhombohedral bilayers of transition metal dichalcogenides. Here we explore the switching behaviour of sliding ferroelectricity using scanning probe microscopy domain mapping and tunnelling transport measurements. We observe well-pronounced ambipolar switching behaviour in ferroelectric tunnelling junctions with composite ferroelectric/non-polar insulator barriers and support our experimental results with complementary theoretical modelling. Furthermore, we show that the switching behaviour is strongly influenced by the underlying domain structure, allowing the fabrication of diverse ferroelectric tunnelling junction devices with various functionalities. We show that to observe the polarisation reversal, at least one partial dislocation must be present in the device area. This behaviour is drastically different from that of conventional ferroelectric materials, and its understanding is an important milestone for the future development of optoelectronic devices based on sliding ferroelectricity.

ARPES Signatures of Few-Layer Twistronic Graphenes.

Diverse emergent correlated electron phenomena have been observed in twisted-graphene layers. Many electronic structure predictions have been reported exploring this new field, but with few momentum-resolved electronic structure measurements to test them. We use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to study the twist-dependent (1° < θ < 8°) band structure of twisted-bilayer, monolayer-on-bilayer, and double-bilayer graphene (tDBG). Direct comparison is made between experiment and theory, using a hybrid k·p model for interlayer coupling. Quantitative agreement is found across twist angles, stacking geometries, and back-gate voltages, validating the models and revealing field-induced gaps in twisted graphenes. However, for tDBG at θ = 1.5 ± 0.2°, close to the magic angle θ = 1.3°, a flat band is found near the Fermi level with measured bandwidth Ew = 31 ± 5 meV. An analysis of the gap between the flat band and the next valence band shows deviations between experiment (Δh = 46 ± 5 meV) and theory (Δh = 5 meV), indicative of lattice relaxation in this regime.