Out-of-Plane Oscillating Electric Fields Unlock Low-Temperature Nonequilibrium Superionicity in Quasi-Two-Dimensional AgCrSe2
Abstract
Superionic conductors enable exceptionally fast ion transport in solids and offer broad technological potential. However, their highly conductive states are typically accessed only above the order-disorder transition of the mobile-ion sublattice, which limits low-temperature operation. Here, electric-field-responsive machine-learning molecular dynamics reveals a nonequilibrium route to superionic transport in quasi-two-dimensional AgCrSe2 driven by an out-of-plane oscillating electric field. At 300 K, far below the transition temperature near 475 K, the field activates fast in-plane Ag+ transport with an ionic conductivity reaching ~1.7 S/cm. This originates from field-driven dynamic disorder of Ag+ across two equivalent sublattices rather than thermally induced disordering. With increasing frequency, the Ag occupation evolves from complete switching to a highly conductive dynamically disordered state and finally to an ordered state with weak field response. These regimes shift to higher frequencies with increasing temperature or field amplitude, consistent with competition between the driving period and Ag-sublattice response time. At strong fields, this timescale is consistent with field-assisted thermal activation, while weak-field deviations suggest additional dynamics beyond single-ion activation. These results suggest timescale-matched periodic driving as a route to transport-active ionic disorder far below an equilibrium superionic transition.
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BibTeX
@misc{li2026outofplane,
title = {{Out-of-Plane Oscillating Electric Fields Unlock Low-Temperature Nonequilibrium Superionicity in Quasi-Two-Dimensional AgCrSe2}},
author = {Jia-Wen Li and Kun Yang and Sheng Meng and Xinghua Shi and Wei-Hai Fang and Jin Zhang},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.05941},
eprint = {2610.05941},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.05941},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Out-of-Plane Oscillating Electric Fields Unlock Low-Temperature Nonequilibrium Superionicity in Quasi-Two-Dimensional AgCrSe2
AU - Jia-Wen Li
AU - Kun Yang
AU - Sheng Meng
AU - Xinghua Shi
AU - Wei-Hai Fang
AU - Jin Zhang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/05
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.05941
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.05941
AB - Superionic conductors enable exceptionally fast ion transport in solids and offer broad technological potential. However, their highly conductive states are typically accessed only above the order-disorder transition of the mobile-ion sublattice, which limits low-temperature operation. Here, electric-field-responsive machine-learning molecular dynamics reveals a nonequilibrium route to superionic transport in quasi-two-dimensional AgCrSe2 driven by an out-of-plane oscillating electric field. At 300 K, far below the transition temperature near 475 K, the field activates fast in-plane Ag+ transport with an ionic conductivity reaching ~1.7 S/cm. This originates from field-driven dynamic disorder of Ag+ across two equivalent sublattices rather than thermally induced disordering. With increasing frequency, the Ag occupation evolves from complete switching to a highly conductive dynamically disordered state and finally to an ordered state with weak field response. These regimes shift to higher frequencies with increasing temperature or field amplitude, consistent with competition between the driving period and Ag-sublattice response time. At strong fields, this timescale is consistent with field-assisted thermal activation, while weak-field deviations suggest additional dynamics beyond single-ion activation. These results suggest timescale-matched periodic driving as a route to transport-active ionic disorder far below an equilibrium superionic transition.
ER -