Boosting Photocurrent via Heating BiFeO₃ Materials for Enhanced Self‐Powered UV Photodetectors

Abstract

BiFeO 3 (BFO) is a potentially important Pb-free ferroelectric with a narrow bandgap and is expected to become a novel photodetector. The photocurrent in BFO 3 strongly depends on the temperature but only a few studies have investigated in detail the relationships between photocurrent and temperature. Here, the temperature-dependent photocurrent and the corresponding photosensing properties of a Ag/BFO/indiumtin oxide (ITO) photodetector based on an optimized planar-structured electrode configuration are investigated. The photocurrent and responsivity of the BFO 3 -based photodetector can first be increased and then be decreased with increasing temperature. The largest photocurrent and responsivity can reach 51.5 µA and 6.56 × 10 −4 A W −1 at 66.1 °C, which is enhanced 126.3% as compared with that at room temperature. This may be caused by the temperature-modulated bandgap and barrier height in Ag/BFO/ITO device. This study clarifies the relationship between photosensing performance and the operating temperature of BFO-based photodetector and will push forward the application of ferroelectric materials in photoelectric field.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201906232. above mentioned solar cells, ferroelectric materials, which can exhibit abnormal photovoltaic effect evidencing by above bandgap photovoltage, have attracted much attention. [6][7][8][9][10] By contrast with traditional solar cells, the mechanism of the photovoltaic effect in ferroelectric materials is totally different. Moreover, the particular photovoltaic effect with ferroelectrics may have more chances to break the energy conversion limit in conventional solar cells. [11] Among the traditional ferroelectric materials, the photovoltaic properties of BiFeO 3 (BFO) films and single crystals are extensive studied because of its narrow bandgap near 2.7 eV. [12][13][14] Early investigations have been focused on the fundamental science attempting to explain the origins and working principles of ferroelectric photovoltaic effect as well as adoption of practical methods to improve the photovoltaic performances. Due to the appearance of different abnormal photovoltaic properties on BFO devices, four theories are proposed involving bulk photovoltaic effect, [15,16] domain wall theory, [17] Schottky-junction effect [18,19] and depolarization field effect. [20,21] In recent years, The largely reduced bandgap can cover the entire visible range, resulting in that a high power conversion efficiency of 8.1% has been achieved on Bi 2 FeCrO 6 thin film. [22] However, such a power conversion efficiency is still far below the commercialized Si-based solar cells (22%).Moreover, without being used as a solar cell aiming to generate large-scale electricity, ferroelectric devices with small-scale electricity generation can simultaneously be a photodetector to detect incident light. [23][24][25][26] As compared with the conventional battery-powered counterparts, the self-powered photodete...

Tailoring of a visible-light-absorbing biaxial ferroelectric towards broadband self-driven photodetection

“…6d , PEPI exhibits obvious I sc signal in the wide range of 365–670 nm, which is consistent with its narrow optical absorption bandgap. Compared to traditional inorganic materials, such as ZnO 9 , BiFeO 3 35 , Pb(Zr,Ti)O 3 36 , and GaN 37 , PEPI possesses the wider self-driven detection range up to 670 nm. As far as we know, this figure-of-merit is the widest value obtained for the existing molecular ferroelectrics materials, which endows great potentials of PEPI toward broadband self-driven photodetection.…”

Structure, Performance, and Application of BiFeO3 Nanomaterials

“…Adapted with permission from Ref. [ 115 ]. f BFO nanomaterials with different morphologies show different photocatalytic activities.…”

“…This work demonstrated that it is possible to modulate the photovoltaic performance by controlling temperature gradients, which can provide a novel pathway to enhance the photovoltaic property of BFO-based material. Then, they further deeply investigated the relationships between photocurrent and temperature [ 115 ]. As illustrated in Fig.…”

Scavenging Energy Sources Using Ferroelectric Materials

“…Examples of novel work reported in recent years are listed in Table 3 and Figure 6, where the output performance and figure of merit of these photovoltaic devices are summarized in Table 3. [51,160,162,[170][171][172][173] Inorganic ferroelectric materials with perovskite structure are often used in solar energy harvesting or photodetection. The bandgaps of typical perovskite materials are relatively wide (2.7-4 eV), which limits the photoabsorption capability of perovskite materials and only 8-20% of the solar spectrum can be absorbed.…”