Credit: Yang et al. (Nature Electronics, 2023).
Engineers have been working hard to create computing-in-memory devices, a new type of electronics that can handle both computation and data storage in one device to speed up processes and improve data analysis. Emerging hardware designs show great promise, but the key is finding the right materials to help them maintain low power consumption. Ferroelectric materials with sliding ferroelectricity, specifically 2D semiconductors, are being identified as materials of interest. However, actually getting these materials to switch their electric polarization reliably is proving difficult.
In a new study, researchers have developed an effective strategy to achieve a switchable electric polarization in molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and ultimately created new promising ferroelectric transistors for computing-in-memory applications. The discovery was quite serendipitous. It was made during the experimental confirmation of sliding ferroelectricity in 2D materials and led to the development of the fundamentally new ferroelectric transistors for computing-in-memory applications.
This new method could be the key to opening up possibilities for other 2D semiconducting materials with sliding ferroelectricity in the future and there are hopes that this will be able to pave the way for further advancement in this field.
