Efficient Photovoltaic Current Generation at Ferroelectric Domain Walls

Jan Seidel, Deyi Fu, Seung-Yeul Yang, Esther Alarcón-Lladó, Junqiao Wu, Ramamoorthy Ramesh, and Joel W. Ager, III
Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 126805 – Published 15 September 2011

Abstract

We elucidate the mechanism of a newly observed photovoltaic effect which occurs in ferroelectrics with periodic domain structures. Under sufficiently strong illumination, domain walls function as nanoscale generators of the photovoltaic current. The steps in the electrostatic potential function to accumulate electrons and holes on opposite sides of the walls while locally reducing the concentration of the oppositely charged carriers. As a result, the recombination rate adjacent to the walls is reduced, leading to a net diffusion current. In open circuit, photovoltages for periodically ordered domain walls are additive and voltages much larger than the band gap can be generated. The internal quantum efficiency for individual domain walls can be surprisingly high, approaching 10% for above band-gap photons. Although we have found the effect in BiFeO3 films, it should occur in any system with a similar periodic potential.

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  • Received 18 May 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.126805

© 2011 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Jan Seidel1,2, Deyi Fu3,4, Seung-Yeul Yang3, Esther Alarcón-Lladó1,5, Junqiao Wu1,3, Ramamoorthy Ramesh1,2,3, and Joel W. Ager, III1,*

  • 1Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA
  • 2Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
  • 3Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
  • 4School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
  • 5Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

  • *Corresponding author JWAger@lbl.gov

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Issue

Vol. 107, Iss. 12 — 16 September 2011

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