Ferroelectric Materials for Solar Energy Conversion: Photoferroics Revisited

Abstract

The application of ferroelectric materials (i.e. solids that exhibit spontaneous electric polarisation) in solar cells has a long and controversial history. This includes the first observations of the anomalous photovoltaic effect (APE) and the bulk photovoltaic effect (BPE). The recent successful application of inorganic and hybrid perovskite structured materials (e.g. BiFeO3, CsSnI3, CH3NH3PbI3) in solar cells emphasises that polar semiconductors can be used in conventional photovoltaic architectures. We review developments in this field, with a particular emphasis on the materials known to display the APE/BPE (e.g. ZnS, CdTe, SbSI), and the theoretical explanation. Critical analysis is complemented with first-principles calculation of the underlying electronic structure. In addition to discussing the implications of a ferroelectric absorber layer, and the solid state theory of polarisation (Berry phase analysis), design principles and opportunities for high-efficiency ferroelectric photovoltaics are presented.

References in corpus (13)

• Atomistic origins of high-performance in hybrid halide perovskite solar cells
• Relativistic Solar Cells
• Relativistic quasiparticle self-consistent electronic structure of hybrid halide perovskite photovoltaic absorbers
• First principles calculations of the Shift Current Bulk Photovoltaic Effect in Ferroelectrics
• Structural and Electronic Properties of Hybrid Perovskites for High-Efficiency Thin-Film Photovoltaics from First-Principles
• Self-regulation mechanism for charged point defects in hybrid halide perovskites
• Ab initio study of ferroelectric domain walls in PbTiO3
• Molecular ferroelectric contributions to anomalous hysteresis in hybrid perovskite solar cells
• A First-Principles Approach to Insulators in Finite Electric Fields
• Hybrid improper ferroelectricity in a Multiferroic and Magnetoelectric hybrid organic-inorganic perosvkite
• Thermal physics of the lead chalcogenides PbS, PbSe, and PbTe from first principles
• Geometric Ferroelectricity in Fluoro-Perovskites
• Improper Ferroelectricity and Piezoelectric Responses in Rhombohedral ($A$,$A^{\prime }$)$B_2$O${}_6$ Perovskite Oxides

Cited by in corpus (38)

• Perovskites for Solar and Thermal Energy Harvesting: State of the Art Technologies, Current Scenario and Future Directions
• Out-of-plane Piezoelectricity and Ferroelectricity in Layered $\alpha$-In2Se3 Nano-flakes
• Identifying defect-tolerant semiconductors with high minority carrier lifetimes: Beyond hybrid lead halide perovskites
• What is moving in hybrid halide perovskite solar cells?
• Photoferroelectric oxides
• Ferroelectric domains in methylammonium lead iodide perovskite thin-films
• Ab initio calculation of the shift photocurrent by Wannier interpolation
• Hexagonal Rare-Earth Manganites as Promising Photovoltaics and Light Polarizers
• Spectral dynamics of topological shift-current in ferroelectric semiconductor SbSI
• Direct observation of ferroelectricity in Ca${}_3$Mn${}_2$O${}_7$ and its prominent light absorption
• Lattice dynamics and ferroelectric properties of the nitride perovskite ${\mathrm{LaWN}}_3$
• Impact of electrodes on the extraction of shift current from a ferroelectric semiconductor SbSI
• Tuning photovoltaic response in Bi2FeCrO6 films by ferroelectric poling
• Shift current response in elemental two-dimensional ferroelectrics
• Investigation of La and Al substitution on the spontaneous polarization and lattice dynamics of the Pb(1-x)LaxTi(1-x)AlxO3 ceramics
• Optically rewritable memory in a graphene/ferroelectric-photovoltaic heterostructure
• Photovoltaic effect and photopolarization in Pb[(Mg1/3Nb2/3)0.68Ti0.32]O3 crystal
• First principles study of ferroelastic twins in halide perovskites
• Finding a junction partner for candidate solar cell absorbers enargite and bournonite from electronic band and lattice matching
• Influence of crystal structure on charge carrier effective masses in BiFeO${}_3$
• Towards Photoferroic Materials by Design: Recent Progresses and Perspective
• Exchange striction driven magnetodielectric effect and potential photovoltaic effect in polar CaOFeS
• Organic photovoltaics without p-n junctions: Computational study of ferroelectric columnar molecular clusters
• Photovoltaic-ferroelectric materials for the realization of all-optical devices
• Vibrational Anharmonicity Assisted Phase Transitions in Perovskite Oxides under Terahertz Irradiation
• Enhanced functional reversibility in lead-free ferroelectric material over long cycle pyroelectric energy conversion
• Graphene magnetoresistance control by photoferroelectric substrate
• Inducing Spontaneous Electric Polarizations in Double Perovskite Iodide Superlattices for New Ferroelectric Photovoltaic Materials
• Single wavelength operating neuromorphic device based on a graphene-ferroelectric transistor
• On the photovoltaic effect asymmetry in ferroelectrics
• Larger photovoltaic effect and hysteretic photocarrier dynamics in Pb[(Mg1/3Nb2/3)0.70Ti0.30]O3 crystal
• Magnetism-induced second-order nonlinear optical responses in multiferroic BiFeO${}_3$
• New class of planar ferroelectric Mott insulators via first principles design
• Intrinsic inverse band gap versus polarization relation in ferroelectric materials
• General Learning of the Electric Response of Inorganic Materials
• Semiconducting nonperovskite ferroelectric oxynitride designed ab initio
• ZnSnS3 : Structure Prediction, Ferroelectricity, and Solar Cell Applications
• Review: Solid-state physics of halide perovskites