We report on the demonstration of ferroelectricity in ScxAl1-xN grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaN templates. Distinct polarization switching is unambiguously observed for ScxAl1-xN films with Sc contents in the range of 0.14–0.36. Sc0.20Al0.80N, which is nearly lattice- matched with GaN, exhibiting a coercive field of ~ 4.2 MV/cm at 10 kHz and a remnant polarization of ~ 135 uC/cm2. After electrical poling, Sc0.20Al0.80N presents a polarization retention time beyond 105 s. No obvious fatigue behavior can be found with up to 3 x 105 switching cycles. The work reported here is more than a technical achievement. The realization of ferroelectric single-crystalline III–V semiconductors by molecular beam epitaxy promises a thickness scaling into the nanometer regime and makes it possible to integrate high-performance fer- roelectric functionality with well-established semiconductor platforms for a broad range of electronic, optoelectronic, and photonic device applications.
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