Emergent Ferroelectric Switching Behavior from Polar Vortex Lattice

Topologically protected polar textures have provided a rich playground for the exploration of novel, emergent phenomena. Recent discoveries indicate that ferroelectric vortices and skyrmions not only host properties markedly different from traditional ferroelectrics, but also that these properties can be harnessed for unique memory devices. Using a combination of capacitor‐based capacitance measurements and computational models, it is demonstrated that polar vortices in dielectric–ferroelectric–dielectric trilayers exhibit classical ferroelectric bi‐stability together with the existence of low‐field metastable polarization states. This behavior is directly tied to the in‐plane vortex ordering, and it is shown that it can be used as a new method of non‐destructive readout‐out of the poled state. Within the polar vortex lattice, low‐field metastable switching events are demonstrated in coexistence with classical ferroelectric bi‐stability. By changing the poled state of the vortex lattice one can tune the anisotropy of these low‐field hysteresis loops, allowing for a novel method of non‐destructive readout of the poled state with a simple in‐plane capacitor.