R&D: Ferroelectricity and Nonvolatile Memristor Applications of Free-Standing 2D Niobium Carbide, New Frontier of Free-Standing MXene in Electronic Devices

Nano-Micro Small has published an article written by Rabia Tahir, Sheryar Abid, Kubra Sattar, Arooma Syed, Advanced Two-dimensional Materials & Devices (ATMD) Laboratory, Department of Physics and Astronomy, School of Natural Sciences, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, 44000 Pakistan  Iftikhar Hussain, Kaili Zhang, Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong, 999077 Hong Kong, and Syed Rizwan, Advanced Two-dimensional Materials & Devices (ATMD) Laboratory, Department of Physics and Astronomy, School of Natural Sciences, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, 44000 Pakistan.

Abstract: “2D materials have emerged as a new frontier in electronic devices, offering immense potential for next-generation memory and related technologies. Among these, memristors, due to their ability to retain past states and exhibit resistive switching, represent a major breakthrough, providing significant advantages in both memory storage and computational efficiency. Herein, free-standing film of 2D Niobium Carbide (Nb₂CT_x) MXene is successfully synthesized and characterized by using a range of advanced techniques. Its ferroelectric properties are revealed and origin is explored by conducting Polarization–Electric field (P-E) measurements across a voltage range from 1 to 500 V and a frequency range of 100–1000 Hz. Additionally, piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) analyses confirm robust ferroelectric switching, with out-of-plane polarization showing strong and uniform behavior. The successful integration of Nb₂CT_x MXene as a switching layer (SL) in nonvolatile data storage devices by using different 2D electrodes is also demonstrated. The resistive switching is confirmed by the consistent operation of the devices over multiple cycles, and an ON/OFF ratio is observed to be <10 for both Ti₃C₂T_x/Nb₂CT_x/Ti₃C₂T_x and rGO/Nb₂CT_x/rGO devices, demonstrating promising performance for future memory applications.“