Scientists at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab, led by S. Cheema and Prof. S. Salahuddin, have managed to stabilize ferroelectric order in ultrathin doped hafnium oxide on silicon. Their recent paper published in Nature not only demonstrates ferroelectricity down to single nanometer thickness (equivalent to two unit cells of hafnium oxide), but also ultrathin-enhanced ferroelectricity in the atomic-scale regime, a fundamental breakthrough in the field. Ferroelectrics can reverse its spontaneous electric polarization when exposed to an external electric field, which is promising for electronics; in particular, thinner ferroelectrics can efficiently power devices with lower amounts of energy and enable highly-scaled technologies. This discovery opens the possibility for the rapid integration of ultralow-power ferroelectric-based logic and memory devices exploiting a Si-compatible material already used in the manufacturing of computer chips today. Read more here.