Collective sliding relaxor ferroelectricity across thousand-layer van der Waals superstructures

Abstract

Relaxor ferroelectrics are among the most important electromechanical materials owing to their exceptionally large electrostrictive responses. However, conventional relaxor behavior is generally associated with chemical complexity and structural disorder, where local compositional fluctuations generate polar nanoregions, making the microscopic origin of this behavior difficult to control and engineer. Here we report sliding relaxor ferroelectricity (S-RFE), a previously unknown relaxor state in which engineered stacking-phase heterogeneity enables cooperative interlayer sliding to generate collective relaxor behavior. Through stacking-phase engineering in rhombohedral boron nitride, we create sliding domains that act as structural analogues of polar nanoregions and cooperatively align under an electric field through interlayer sliding. This collective state produces reversible electromechanical deformation of up to approximately −1.6% with negligible hysteresis in approximately 300-nm-thick crystals, corresponding to approximately 1000 atomic layers. The resulting electrostriction coefficient (Q₃₃ of approximately 1200 m⁴C⁻²) exceeds those of most crystalline electrostrictors by orders of magnitude. Unlike conventional relaxors, whose electromechanical response is often suppressed by dipolar freezing at low temperatures, S-RFE remains active down to 1.6 K and maintains giant electromechanical functionality. Our results establish sliding relaxor ferroelectricity as a new route to relaxor behavior and reveal how atomic-scale interlayer motion can be amplified into collective mesoscale functionality across approximately one thousand layers, providing a materials-by-design platform for electromechanical, photonic, and quantum technologies based on van der Waals materials.

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BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{shang2026collective,
  title = {{Collective sliding relaxor ferroelectricity across thousand-layer van der Waals superstructures}},
  author = {Nianze Shang and Cuiju Yu and Yucai Lin and Juan C. Arias-Muñoz and Jiajie Qi and Quanlin Guo and MD Gius Uddin and Youqiang Huang and Tuomas Pajunpää and Christopher P. Edwards and Rodolfo E. Canet-Albiach and Faisal Ahmed and Andreas C. Liapis and Yaoqiang Zhou and Zhibin Zhang and Hao Hong and Qing Dai and Andrea Alù and José L. Lado and Kaihui Liu and Zhipei Sun},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.38928},
  eprint = {2610.38928},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.38928},
  note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Collective sliding relaxor ferroelectricity across thousand-layer van der Waals superstructures
AU  - Nianze Shang
AU  - Cuiju Yu
AU  - Yucai Lin
AU  - Juan C. Arias-Muñoz
AU  - Jiajie Qi
AU  - Quanlin Guo
AU  - MD Gius Uddin
AU  - Youqiang Huang
AU  - Tuomas Pajunpää
AU  - Christopher P. Edwards
AU  - Rodolfo E. Canet-Albiach
AU  - Faisal Ahmed
AU  - Andreas C. Liapis
AU  - Yaoqiang Zhou
AU  - Zhibin Zhang
AU  - Hao Hong
AU  - Qing Dai
AU  - Andrea Alù
AU  - José L. Lado
AU  - Kaihui Liu
AU  - Zhipei Sun
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/28
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.38928
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.38928
AB  - Relaxor ferroelectrics are among the most important electromechanical materials owing to their exceptionally large electrostrictive responses. However, conventional relaxor behavior is generally associated with chemical complexity and structural disorder, where local compositional fluctuations generate polar nanoregions, making the microscopic origin of this behavior difficult to control and engineer. Here we report sliding relaxor ferroelectricity (S-RFE), a previously unknown relaxor state in which engineered stacking-phase heterogeneity enables cooperative interlayer sliding to generate collective relaxor behavior. Through stacking-phase engineering in rhombohedral boron nitride, we create sliding domains that act as structural analogues of polar nanoregions and cooperatively align under an electric field through interlayer sliding. This collective state produces reversible electromechanical deformation of up to approximately −1.6% with negligible hysteresis in approximately 300-nm-thick crystals, corresponding to approximately 1000 atomic layers. The resulting electrostriction coefficient (Q_33 of approximately 1200 m^4C^−2) exceeds those of most crystalline electrostrictors by orders of magnitude. Unlike conventional relaxors, whose electromechanical response is often suppressed by dipolar freezing at low temperatures, S-RFE remains active down to 1.6 K and maintains giant electromechanical functionality. Our results establish sliding relaxor ferroelectricity as a new route to relaxor behavior and reveal how atomic-scale interlayer motion can be amplified into collective mesoscale functionality across approximately one thousand layers, providing a materials-by-design platform for electromechanical, photonic, and quantum technologies based on van der Waals materials.
ER  -

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