Switchable magnetic bulk photovoltaic effect in the two-dimensional magnet CrI3

The bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE) rectifies light into the dc current in a single-phase material and attracts the interest to design high-efficiency solar cells beyond the pn junction paradigm. Because it is a hot electron effect, the BPVE surpasses the thermodynamic Shockley–Queisser limit to gen...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2019-08, Vol.10 (1), p.1-7, Article 3783
Main Authors: Zhang, Yang, Holder, Tobias, Ishizuka, Hiroaki, de Juan, Fernando, Nagaosa, Naoto, Felser, Claudia, Yan, Binghai
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/301/119/995
639/624/400/385
Electronic devices
Hot electrons
Humanities and Social Sciences
Light effects
Magnetic transitions
Magnetism
multidisciplinary
P-n junctions
Photoconductivity
Photoelectric effect
Photoelectric emission
Photovoltaic cells
Photovoltaic effect
Photovoltaics
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Solar cells
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE) rectifies light into the dc current in a single-phase material and attracts the interest to design high-efficiency solar cells beyond the pn junction paradigm. Because it is a hot electron effect, the BPVE surpasses the thermodynamic Shockley–Queisser limit to generate above-band-gap photovoltage. While the guiding principle for BPVE materials is to break the crystal centrosymmetry, here we propose a magnetic photogalvanic effect (MPGE) that introduces the magnetism as a key ingredient and induces a giant BPVE. The MPGE emerges from the magnetism-induced asymmetry of the carrier velocity in the band structure. We demonstrate the MPGE in a layered magnetic insulator CrI 3 , with much larger photoconductivity than any previously reported results. The photocurrent can be reversed and switched by controllable magnetic transitions. Our work paves a pathway to search for magnetic photovoltaic materials and to design switchable devices combining magnetic, electronic, and optical functionalities. Two dimensional (2D) material with intriguing physical properties promises advanced electronic and spintronic technologies. Here the authors predict a magnetic photo-galvanic effect (MPGE) in bilayer 2D CrI 3 due to the magnetism-induced asymmetry of the carrier velocity in the band-structure topology.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-019-11832-3