Giant switchable photovoltaic effect in organometal trihalide perovskite devices

Zhengguo Xiao; Yongbo Yuan; Yuchuan Shao; Qi Wang; Qingfeng Dong; Cheng Bi; Pankaj Sharma; Alexei Gruverman; Jinsong Huang

doi:10.1038/nmat4150

Giant switchable photovoltaic effect in organometal trihalide perovskite devices

Nat Mater. 2015 Feb;14(2):193-8. doi: 10.1038/nmat4150. Epub 2014 Dec 8.

Authors

Zhengguo Xiao¹, Yongbo Yuan¹, Yuchuan Shao¹, Qi Wang¹, Qingfeng Dong¹, Cheng Bi¹, Pankaj Sharma², Alexei Gruverman², Jinsong Huang¹

Affiliations

¹ 1] Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0656, USA [2] Nebraska Center for Materials, Nanoscience, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0298, USA.
² 1] Nebraska Center for Materials, Nanoscience, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0298, USA [2] Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0299, USA.

PMID: 25485985
DOI: 10.1038/nmat4150

Abstract

Organolead trihalide perovskite (OTP) materials are emerging as naturally abundant materials for low-cost, solution-processed and highly efficient solar cells. Here, we show that, in OTP-based photovoltaic devices with vertical and lateral cell configurations, the photocurrent direction can be switched repeatedly by applying a small electric field of <1 V μm(-1). The switchable photocurrent, generally observed in devices based on ferroelectric materials, reached 20.1 mA cm(-2) under one sun illumination in OTP devices with a vertical architecture, which is four orders of magnitude larger than that measured in other ferroelectric photovoltaic devices. This field-switchable photovoltaic effect can be explained by the formation of reversible p-i-n structures induced by ion drift in the perovskite layer. The demonstration of switchable OTP photovoltaics and electric-field-manipulated doping paves the way for innovative solar cell designs and for the exploitation of OTP materials in electrically and optically readable memristors and circuits.