Recent Advancement in Ferroic Freestanding Oxide Nanomembranes

Ferroic and multiferroic oxides have been of significant interest for the last four decades due to their tremendous potential for next-generation memory and computational technologies. Possessing multiple ferroic orders with strong coupling between them erects a new way toward fast and low voltage switching. The major challenge is the scarcity of multiferroic materials at room temperature operation with a high coupling strength and robust ferroic orderings. Integration of existing multiferroics, mostly complex oxides, into the silicon-based platform also poses a major challenge. The recent development of freestanding oxide membranes offers a versatile solution for new and novel strategies to develop new materials. In this mini-review, we summarize the significant developments that happened in very recent years with ferroic oxide nanomembranes. We outline different approaches that have been implemented in the freestanding membranes to modulate the ferroic orderings, magnetism, ferroelectricity, and ferroelasticity. Along with the well-developed methods, such as bending and stretching of the membranes, we also emphasize the strength of twisting as a promising way to design and tune novel multiferroic orderings.