Coupling oxygen vacancy gradient distribution and flexoelectric effects for enhanced photovoltaic performance in bismuth ferrite films
Publication Name
Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers
Abstract
Although the anomalous ferroelectric photovoltaic effect of bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) has recently drawn widespread attention, very low photocurrent density and poor power conversion efficiency severely hinder its practical application as a photovoltaic device. A novel photovoltaic architecture was herein designed and constructed to achieve enhanced photovoltaic performance in (Sm and Ni) gradient-doped BiFeO3 multilayers. The experimental results and analysis show that the gradient distribution of oxygen vacancies greatly enhances the photovoltaic performance of the gradient-doped BiFeO3 multilayer. In particular, its photocurrent density (Jsc) of 80 μA cm−2 and open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.49 V are much higher than those of pure BiFeO3 films reported in previous literature. Meanwhile, a possible underlying mechanism was finally proposed to demonstrate the enhanced photovoltaic property, that is, the oxygen vacancy gradient distribution coupled with the flexoelectric effect greatly enhances the separation of photogenerated carriers, thereby ultimately enhancing the photovoltaic output of the above photovoltaic architecture.
Open Access Status
This publication is not available as open access
Funding Number
52072296
Funding Sponsor
National Natural Science Foundation of China