Giant Nonlinear Optical Response via Coherent Stacking of In‐Plane Ferroelectric Layers
Abstract
Thin ferroelectric materials hold great promise for compact nonvolatile memory and nonlinear optical and optoelectronic devices. Herein, an ultrathin in‐plane ferroelectric material that exhibits a giant nonlinear optical effect, group‐IV monochalcogenide SnSe, is reported. Nanometer‐scale ferroelectric domains with ≈90°/270° twin boundaries or ≈180° domain walls are revealed in physical‐vapor‐deposited SnSe by lateral piezoresponse force microscopy. Atomic structure characterization reveals both parallel and antiparallel stacking of neighboring van der Waals ferroelectric layers, leading to ferroelectric or antiferroelectric ordering. Ferroelectric domains exhibit giant nonlinear optical activity due to coherent enhancement of second‐harmonic fields and the as‐resulted second‐harmonic generation was observed to be 100 times more intense than monolayer WS2. This work demonstrates in‐plane ferroelectric ordering and giant nonlinear optical activity in SnSe, which paves the way for applications in on‐chip nonlinear optical components and nonvolatile memory devices.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- May 12, 2023
- Source ID
- 10.1002/adma.202210894
Entities
People
- Austin J. Akey
- Chuqiao Shi
- Hao‐lin Tang
- Jing Kong
- Ji‐hoon Park
- Jules A. Gardener
- Ming‐hui Chiu
- Nannan Mao
- Tymofii S. Pieshkov
- Vincent Tung
- William A. Tisdale
- William L. Wilson
- Xi Ling
- Xiang Ji
- Xiaofeng Qian
- Yimo Han
- Yue Luo
- Yuxuan Lin
Organizations
- Army Research Office
- Boston University
- Harvard University
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- National Science Foundation
- Office of Basic Energy Sciences
- Office of Science
- Rice University
- Robert A. Welch Foundation
- United States Department of Energy