Prof. Daniel LAU, Associate Director of the Photonics Research Institute, Chair Professor of Nanomaterials and Head of the Department of Applied Physics, discovered that bilayer stacks of molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) and tungsten disulphide (WS2) produced at the nanometre scale retained their intrinsic ferroelectric property. The electrical polarisation of these ferroelectric materials can be reversed by simply applying a current. These ultra-thin nanoscale ferroelectrics have promising applications in sensors, capacitors and data storage. The large-scale manufacturing of the materials at low cost, with low energy demand and reliable reproducibility, will benefit the electronics industry.
The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Renmin University of China, University of Cambridge, and Nanjing University, and was published in Science.(www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm5734)