Increasing bulk photovoltaic current by strain tuning [* Cross-Reference *]

In contrast to the interface-based photovoltaic effect of semiconductors, the anomalous or bulk photovoltaic effect in ferroelectrics is not bound by the Shockley-Queisser limit and, thus, can potentially reach high efficiencies. Here, we observe in the example of an Fe-doped LiNbO 3 bulk single crystal the existence of a purely intrinsic “piezophotovoltaic” effect that leads to a linear increase in photovoltaic current density.

The increase reaches 75% under a low uniaxial compressive stress of 10 MPa, corresponding to a strain of only 0.005%. The physical origin and symmetry properties of the effect are investigated, and its potential for strain-tuned efficiency increase in nonconventional photovoltaic materials is presented. ***This entry has been automatically imported via Infodoc(ASO) CSV by LIST harvest scripts. Please refer to doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau9199 for the original and latest version of the dataset and data downloads***