Regensburg 2019 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

SYCO: Symposium Mechanically Controlled Electrical Conductivity of Oxides

SYCO 1: Mechanically controlled electrical conductivity of oxides

SYCO 1.5: Invited Talk

Monday, April 1, 2019, 12:00–12:30, H1

Bulk and Flexo-photovoltaic effect — •Marin Alexe, Ming-Min Yang, and Dong-Jik Kim — University of Warwick, Department of Physics, CV4 7AL Coventry, UK

Two years after the invention of modern prototype solar cells, it was found that a ferroelectric material exhibits a photovoltaic effect distinct from that of p-n junctions, later called the bulk photovoltaic (BPV) effect. Under uniform illumination, a homogeneous ferroelectric material gives rise to a current under zero bias, i.e. short-circuit current, that depends on the polarization state of the incident light and produces an anomalously large photo-voltage well exceeding the bandgap energy. The present talk will firstly present the basics of the bulk photovoltaic effect and the electronic origin of the anomalous BPV in multiferroic BiFeO3. I will finally discuss a new mechanically-induced photovoltaic effect [1] which turns the BPV effect into a universal effect allowed in all semiconductors by mediation of the flexoelectric effect.

[1] M. Yang, D.J. Kim, M. Alexe, Flexo-photovoltaic effect, Science 360, 904 (2018)