Ferroelectric composite artificially-structured functional material: multifield control for tunable functional devices

Abstract

Abstract Artificially-structured functional materials (AFMs) are artificial media that combine the advantages of nature materials and artificial structures to produce excellent and unexpected properties. Ferroelectric materials have key features in possessing spontaneous polarizations, which can be switched by using electric field, temperature, and strain. This review article attempts to provide a comprehensive insight into the current development of ferroelectric composite AFMs, and to introduce a developing subject in realizing multifield controls for tunable functional devices. Some typical ferroelectric materials and their multifield tunable mechanisms are summarized in detail. The incorporation of ferroelectric materials can yield various designs of AFMs to modulate electromagnetic waves. Recent progress of typical designs with different tuning strategies for active AFMs are illustrated and compared, including the metamaterials, metasurfaces, heterojunctions, superlattices, and their hybrid designs. This scientific subject involves interesting research topics of electromagnetism, electronics, optoelectronics, and ferroelectrics, which is significant to bring novel functionalities via multifield controls.