Nanostructure Engineering for Ferroelectric Photovoltaics

Abstract

Ferroelectric photovoltaic has attracted increasing attention since its discovery in the 1970s, due to above bandgap photovoltage and polarized light-dependent photocurrent. However, its practical applications have been limited by weak visible light absorption and low photoconductivity. Intrinsic modification of the material, such as bandgap tuning through chemical doping, has proven effective but usually leads to the degradation of ferroelectricity. Recently, various nanostructures such as multilayer heterojunctions, nanoparticles, vertically aligned nanocomposites and polar nanoregions have been developed to enhance photovoltaic performance. These approaches enable nanoassembling materials in a lower dimension manner to optimize the bulk photovoltaic effect whilst effectively preserving or even inducing ferroelectricity. This review highlights the fabrication processes of these emerging ferroelectric nanostructures and evaluates their photovoltaic performance.