Superconducting cavity probes sliding ferroelectricity in small-angle twisted WSe$_2$

Abstract

Ferroelectricity is a property of materials that exhibit spontaneous charge polarization. Ferroelectricity in 2D materials is interesting because of their applications in memory devices and field-effect transistors. Recently, a new type of ferroelectricity, known as sliding ferroelectricity, has been discovered, in which parallel-stacked bilayers of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) or transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) develop an out-of-plane electric polarization. In this work, we probe the polarization of small-angle parallel stacked WSe$_2$ by measuring its high-frequency AC response, achieved by embedding it into a half-wave superconducting coplanar waveguide cavity. We observe a hysteretic response in the capacitance of the stack and quality factor of the cavity, confirming ferroelectric switching in the system. Our results further reveal relaxation effects associated with ferroelectric domain-wall motion. This cavity-based technique has potential applications in probing domain-wall dynamics in a ferroelectric system at high frequencies.