Tuning the symmetry of materials: Design of two-dimensional ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials
Abstract
We proposed tuning and inducing ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of two-dimensional materials with adatoms and defects engineering. We performed first-principles calculations to demonstrate the proposal and predict corresponding ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties. Two-dimensional materials can serve as building blocks to assemble new materials in a designed manner. In this work, we proposed to explicitly break the centrosymmetry with adatoms and defects and therefore induce ferroelectricity or piezoelectricity. Our proposal is in principle valid with any two-dimensional materials, and thus those with mature synthesis technologies, such as graphene, or transition metal chalcogenides can be used to create new ferroelectric or piezoelectric materials. Our proposed design principle for ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials can have out-of-plane polarization and could be more accessible than intrinsic ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials.