Domain Wall Sliding-induced Polarization Switching in Multilayer Graphene

Abstract

Electric polarization and metallicity are long believed not to coexist until the emergence of exceptionally rare material examples including the bulk polar metals and more recently two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) materials such as 1T' WTe2. The electric polarization for the latter represents a new and distinguishable paradigm in materials science and physics because its electric polarization states embedded in the conduction electron sea are able to couple with (and controlled by) the external electric field. However, the microscopic polarization switching process and mechanism in these 2D vdW metallic materials have not been experimentally observed and remain elusive. Here, we report the first direct experimental imaging of the microscopic mechanism behind electric-field-coupled polarization switching in a metallic system. Our gate-tunable nanoscale optical imaging identifies the robust coexistence of electric polarization and appreciable carrier densities in adjacent polar domains hosting opposite electric polarizations in a 2D elemental metallic material, tetralayer graphene. We directly visualize and verify that the sliding domain wall (DW) solitons confined at the middlemost interface are responsible for the polarization switching in tetralayer graphene upon the application of electric fields and mechanical forces. Our work provides the first direct visualization of domain wall sliding-induced polarization switching in 2D elemental carbon at room temperature, significantly expanding and advancing the research of "ferroelectric metal" initially dubbed by P. W. Anderson and coauthors in 1965.