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Perovskite oxides for visible-light-absorbing ferroelectric and photovoltaic materials.

Abstract：

:Ferroelectrics have recently attracted attention as a candidate class of materials for use in photovoltaic devices, and for the coupling of light absorption with other functional properties. In these materials, the strong inversion symmetry breaking that is due to spontaneous electric polarization promotes the desirable separation of photo-excited carriers and allows voltages higher than the bandgap, which may enable efficiencies beyond the maximum possible in a conventional p-n junction solar cell. Ferroelectric oxides are also stable in a wide range of mechanical, chemical and thermal conditions and can be fabricated using low-cost methods such as sol-gel thin-film deposition and sputtering. Recent work has shown how a decrease in ferroelectric layer thickness and judicious engineering of domain structures and ferroelectric-electrode interfaces can greatly increase the current harvested from ferroelectric absorber materials, increasing the power conversion efficiency from about 10(-4) to about 0.5 per cent. Further improvements in photovoltaic efficiency have been inhibited by the wide bandgaps (2.7-4 electronvolts) of ferroelectric oxides, which allow the use of only 8-20 per cent of the solar spectrum. Here we describe a family of single-phase solid oxide solutions made from low-cost and non-toxic elements using conventional solid-state methods: [KNbO3]1 - x[BaNi1/2Nb1/2O3 - δ]x (KBNNO). These oxides exhibit both ferroelectricity and a wide variation of direct bandgaps in the range 1.1-3.8 electronvolts. In particular, the x = 0.1 composition is polar at room temperature, has a direct bandgap of 1.39 electronvolts and has a photocurrent density approximately 50 times larger than that of the classic ferroelectric (Pb,La)(Zr,Ti)O3 material. The ability of KBNNO to absorb three to six times more solar energy than the current ferroelectric materials suggests a route to viable ferroelectric semiconductor-based cells for solar energy conversion and other applications.

journal_name

Nature

journal_title

Nature

authors

Grinberg I,West DV,Torres M,Gou G,Stein DM,Wu L,Chen G,Gallo EM,Akbashev AR,Davies PK,Spanier JE,Rappe AM

doi

10.1038/nature12622

subject

Has Abstract

pub_date

2013-11-28 00:00:00

pages

509-12

issue

7477

eissn

0028-0836

issn

1476-4687

pii

nature12622

journal_volume

503

pub_type

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Perovskite oxides for visible-light-absorbing ferroelectric and photovoltaic materials.