Arising applications of ferroelectric materials in photovoltaic devices

Abstract

The ferroelectric-photovoltaic (FE-PV) device, in which a homogeneous ferroelectric material is used as a light absorbing layer, has been investigated during the past several decades with numerous ferroelectric oxides. The FE-PV effect is distinctly different from the typical photovoltaic (PV) effect in semiconductor p-n junctions in that the polarization electric field is the driving force for the photocurrent in FE-PV devices. In addition, the anomalous photovoltaic effect, in which the voltage output along the polarization direction can be significantly larger than the bandgap of the ferroelectric materials, has been frequently observed in FE-PV devices. However, a big challenge faced by the FE-PV devices is the very low photocurrent output. The research interest in FE-PV devices has been re-spurred by the recent discovery of above-bandgap photovoltage in materials with ferroelectric domain walls, electric switchable diodes and photovoltaic effects, tip-enhanced photovoltaic effects at the nanoscale, and new low-bandgap ferroelectric materials and device design. In this feature article, we reviewed the advance in understanding the mechanisms of the ferroelectric photovoltaic effects and recent progress in improving the photovoltaic device performance, including the emerging approaches of integrating the ferroelectric materials into organic heterojunction photovoltaic devices for very high efficiency PV devices.

Physical aspects of ferroelectric semiconductors for photovoltaic solar energy conversion

“…As the hybrid and organic perovskites have been most extensively reviewed in the literature they will not be further treated in the present report. Several excellent review articles have been presented in recent years on ferroelectric photovoltaics (Sheu et al, 2012,Yuan et al, 2014,Butler et al, 2015) (Akbashev et al, 2016,Paillard et al, 2016 and on the physical properties of ferroelectric materials (Naber et al, 2010,Pintilie, 2011 that updated the early treatises (Fridkin, 1979,Belinicher, 1980,Ruppel et al, 1982,Sturman and Fridkin, 1992. The present work aims at taking a new stance of analysis of the state of the art by examining the specific physical mechanisms and device properties that determine the photovoltaic response of the solar cells based on ferroelectric materials.…”

Tunable ferroelectric polarization and its interplay with spin–orbit coupling in tin iodide perovskites

“…Increasing the efficiency of solar cells and relying on nontoxic abundant elements are absolutely vital to widely replace other means of energy production. Remarkably, in ferroelectric (FE) photovoltaic devices, where a homogeneous FE material acts as a light-absorbing layer, the electric field can help to separate electron-hole pairs, increasing the photocurrent 1,2 . Shift current has been proven to be a main mechanism of the bulk photovoltaic effect in FE oxides 3,4 .…”

Polarization imaging in ferroelectric polymer thin film capacitors by pyroelectric scanning microscopy

“…The results agree well with a thermal model implemented numerically using finite element analysis. Ferroelectric materials have been the subject of increasing interest in recent decades, largely because of the development of methods for thin film and nanostructure fabrication, and subsequent integration into a wide range of electronic technologies, such as thermometry and thermal imaging, 1,2 electromechanical transducers, 3 nonvolatile memories, 4 organic electronics, 5 and energy storage, 6 as well as promising applications to organic photovoltaics, 7 solid-state energy harvesting, and refrigeration. 8,9 To further improve the performance and utility of ferroelectric materials, it is essential to be able to measure the spatial distribution of the polarization at high resolution.…”