Photovoltaic effect of "ferroelectric" bananas. (14th March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ismail, Muhammad; Wu, Zheng; You, Huilin; Jia, Yanmin; Xia, Jianchao; Wang, Yaojin
• Is Part Of: Europhysics letters. Volume 125:Number 4(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-03-14
• Subjects: 77.84.-s -- 72.40.+w -- 73.50.Pz; Physics -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 530.05
• DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/125/47001
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0295-5075

Abstract

Abstract: Due to the existence of ferroelectric polarization, many ferroelectric materials can have excellent photovoltaic performance, which has been widely reported. However, many other materials have also been erroneously labelled as ferroelectrics based solely on the weight of a "ferroelectric" cigar-shaped loop curve. In a past report by J. F. Scott ( J. Phys.: Condens. Matter, 20 (2008) 021001), this sort of minimal analysis has been widely debunked by showing that a clearly non-ferroelectric material such as ordinary bananas can also yield such a ferroelectric loop curve. In this work, we hope to extend his work by similarly showing that ordinary bananas can also exhibit a pseudo-photovoltaic response. Our hope is that future groups researching such materials may find our work helpful in distinguishing true photovoltaic and such pseudo-photovoltaic phenomena in ferroelectric and non-ferroelectric materials with high leakage.