Emergent Phenomena in Wurtzite Ferroelectric Semiconductors

The emergence of ferroelectricity in wurtzite-structured semiconducting materials broadens the material landscape beyond traditional perovskites, introducing design rules for scalable nanoelectronic devices with an inherent thermal robustness. These materials combine large spontaneous polarization, ultrathin scalability, and compatibility with back-end-of-line processing. This review discusses the state-of-the-art and recent progress in understanding their ferroelectric behavior, from atomic-scale switching pathways and proximity-triggered, electrically controlled polarization states to charged yet intrinsically stable domain walls. Progress in compositional tuning, strain and interface engineering, heterostructure design, and advanced synthesis strategies is highlighted, including key material and device challenges for the integration of wurtzite ferroelectrics into next-generation memory, logic-in-memory, and neuromorphic computing systems.