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A strategy of enhancing photovoltaic response in K0.5Na0.5NbO3 based ceramics

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Abstract

Ferroelectric materials with photovoltaic effect have great potential application value in new solar cells, photodetectors and photoelectric memories. However, the low open circuit voltage and conversion efficiency resulted from large band gap width limit its further practical application. In this work, an effective strategy of enhancing photovoltaic response was explored by adjusting band gap width in K0.5Na0.5NbO3 (KNN) based ceramics. (1−x)K0.5Na0.5NbO3−xLa(Mn0.5Ni0.5)O3 (KNN−xLMN; x = 0, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20) ceramics were successfully fabricated by a solid state method. The enhanced photovoltaic response with the short-circuit current density Jsc ~ 331.32 nA/cm2 and the open-circuit voltage Voc ~ 0.65 V was collected at a LMN doping level of 0.15, which was closely related to the suppressed band gap width and enhanced symmetry of crystal structure due to the fine and uniform grains that formed upon LMN doping. The findings reported in this work not only explored the photovoltaic performance of a new lead-free KNN ferroelectric material, but also provided valuable insights on how to improve the photovoltaic effect in traditional bulk ferroelectric materials.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant Nos. 52202143, 52272119). The authors would also like to thank the Natural Science Basic Research Plan in the Shaanxi Province of China (Grant Nos. 2022JQ-338), Young Talent Fund of University Association for Science and Technology in Shaanxi, China (20230415), Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi Provincial Science and Technology Department (2023-YBGY-162), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Program No. GK202002014), Yulin University Research Start-up Fund for Doctor (No. 21GK10) and the Fundamental Innovation Project in School of Materials Science and Engineering (SNNU).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Macromolecular Science of Shaanxi Province and Shaanxi Key Laboratory for Advanced Energy Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, 710062, Shaanxi, China

    Zhanhui Peng, Qiangqiang Shi, Qizhen Chai, Yuanhao Wang, Xiaolian Chao & Zupei Yang

  2. Northwest Institute for Non-Ferrous Metal Research, Xi’an, 710016, China

    Jianfei Liu

  3. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yulin University, Yulin, 719000, Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Bi Chen

  4. School of Physics and Information Technology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, 710062, Shaanxi, China

    Pengfei Liang

  5. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an, 710048, Shaanxi, China

    Juanjuan Wang

Authors
  1. Zhanhui Peng
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  2. Qiangqiang Shi
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  3. Jianfei Liu
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  4. Bi Chen
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  9. Xiaolian Chao
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  10. Zupei Yang
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by ZP, QS. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ZP, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zhanhui Peng, Juanjuan Wang, Xiaolian Chao or Zupei Yang.

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Peng, Z., Shi, Q., Liu, J. et al. A strategy of enhancing photovoltaic response in K0.5Na0.5NbO3 based ceramics. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1289 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10669-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10669-3

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