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Power conversion efficiency exceeding the Shockley–Queisser limit in a ferroelectric insulator

Nature Photonics volume 10, pages 611–616 (2016)Cite this article

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An Erratum to this article was published on 29 September 2016

This article has been updated

Abstract

Ferroelectric absorbers, which promote carrier separation and exhibit above-gap photovoltages, are attractive candidates for constructing efficient solar cells. Using the ferroelectric insulator BaTiO3 we show how photogeneration and the collection of hot, non-equilibrium electrons through the bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE) yields a greater-than-unity quantum efficiency. Despite absorbing less than a tenth of the solar spectrum, the power conversion efficiency of the BPVE device under 1 sun illumination exceeds the Shockley–Queisser limit for a material of this bandgap. We present data for devices that feature a single-tip electrode contact and an array with 24 tips (total planar area of 1 × 1 μm2) capable of generating a current density of 17 mA cm–2 under illumination of AM1.5 G. In summary, the BPVE at the nanoscale provides an exciting new route for obtaining high-efficiency photovoltaic solar energy conversion.

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Figure 1: Schematic illustrations of the photoexcitation processes.
Figure 2: Bulk photovoltaic response at the nanoscale in bulk single-domain ferroelectric BTO.
Figure 3: Quantum efficiency, photocurrent spectrum and power conversion efficiency in bulk single-domain ferroelectric BTO at the nanoscale.
Figure 4: Photovoltaic device consisting of an array of nanoscale tips.

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Change history

  • 31 August 2016

    In the version of this Article originally published, in Fig. 3a, the units on the left-hand y axis were incorrect; they should have read '(A cm–2)'. This has now been corrected in the online versions of the Article.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank L. Tan, F. Zheng, E. J. Mele, J. B. Baxter and I. Grinberg for discussions. J.E.S. acknowledges the support of the US Army Research Office through grant no. W911NF-14-1-0500. A.M.R. acknowledges the support of the Department of Energy through grant no. DE-FG02-07ER46431. Y.Q. and C.J.H. acknowledge the support of the Office of Naval Research through grant no. N00014-14-1-0761. S.M.Y. was supported by a National Research Council Research Associateship Award at the US Naval Research Laboratory. The authors acknowledge core materials characterization facilities at Drexel for access to electron and focused ion beam microscopy, including instrumentation supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. DMR 0722845. The authors also acknowledge additional support from the National Science Foundation and the Semiconductor Research Corporation under the Nanoelectronics in 2020 and Beyond Program under grant no. DMR 1124696.

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Author notes

  1. Jonathan E. Spanier and Vladimir M. Fridkin: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, 19104, Pennsylvania, USA

    Jonathan E. Spanier, Andrew R. Akbashev, Alessia Polemi, Christopher J. Hawley, Geoffrey Xiao, Andrew L. Bennett-Jackson & Craig L. Johnson

  2. Department of Physics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, 19104, Pennsylvania, USA

    Jonathan E. Spanier & Vladimir M. Fridkin

  3. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, 19104, Pennsylvania, USA

    Jonathan E. Spanier, Zongquan Gu & Dominic Imbrenda

  4. Shubnikov Institute for Crystallography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 59, Moscow, 117333, Russia

    Vladimir M. Fridkin

  5. Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104, Pennsylvania, USA

    Andrew M. Rappe & Yubo Qi

  6. US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, 20375, DC, USA

    Steve M. Young

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  1. Jonathan E. Spanier
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Contributions

V.M.F. and J.E.S. proposed the ideas and designed the experiments. V.M.F., A.R.A., Z.G., C.J.H., D.I., A.L.B.-J. and G.X. designed the optical and optoelectronic set-ups, collected photogenerated Hall and photocurrent data, and performed optical and microscopy measurements. J.E.S., V.M.F., A.M.R., A.P., S.M.Y., Y.Q. and C.L.J. contributed to analyses of the data and results, and validation of the model, including simulations. J.E.S. and V.M.F. wrote the manuscript, and with A.M.R., A.P., S.M.Y. and Y.Q., edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jonathan E. Spanier.

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Spanier, J., Fridkin, V., Rappe, A. et al. Power conversion efficiency exceeding the Shockley–Queisser limit in a ferroelectric insulator. Nature Photon 10, 611–616 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2016.143

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