A discovery by an international team of scientists has revealed room-temperature ferroelectric and resistive switching behaviors in single-element tellurium (Te) nanowires, paving the way for advancements in ultrahigh-density data storage and neuromorphic computing.

Published in Nature Communications, this research marks the first experimental evidence of ferroelectricity in Te nanowires, a single-element material, which was previously predicted only in theoretical models.

“Ferroelectric materials are substances that can store electrical charge and keep it even when the power is turned off, and their charge can be switched by applying an external electric field—a characteristic essential for non-volatile memory applications,” points out co-corresponding author of the paper Professor Yong P. Chen, a principal investigator at Tohoku University’s Advanced Institute for Materials Research (AIMR) and a professor at Purdue and Aarhus Universities.