Anomalous circular bulk photovoltaic effect in BiFeO<sub>3</sub> thin films with stripe-domain pattern.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33436580.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-20446-z and PMC identifier 7804139.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Multiferroic bismuth ferrite, BiFeO<sub>3</sub>, offers a vast landscape to study the interplay between different ferrroic orders. Another aspect which is equally exciting, and yet underutilized, is the possibility of large-scale ordering of domains. Along with symmetry-driven bulk photovoltaic effect, BiFeO<sub>3</sub> presents opportunities to conceptualize novel light-based devices. In this work, we investigate the evolution of the bulk photovoltaic effect in BiFeO<sub>3</sub> thin films with stripe-domain pattern as the polarization of light is modulated from linear to elliptical to circular. The open-circuit voltages under circularly polarized light exceed ± 25 V. The anomalous character of the effect arises from the contradiction with the analytical assessment involving tensorial analysis. The assessment highlights the need for a domain-specific interaction of light which is further analyzed with spatially-resolved Raman measurements. Appropriate positioning of electrodes allows observation of a switch-like photovoltaic effect, i.e., ON and OFF state, by changing the helicity of circularly polarized light.