Piezo-phototronic solar cell based on 2D monochalcogenides materials

Abstract

Piezo-phototronics is an emerging field which involves the coupling between photoexcitation, piezoelectricity, and semiconductor. The piezoelectric semiconductors have a non-centro symmetrical crystal structure. Piezo-phototronic effect can be applied to regulate the charge carriers’ generation, separation, transport, and recombination by controlling the Schottky barrier height of Metal semiconductor contact or built-in potential of p-n junction. Recent studies have shown that Group IV Monochalcogenides have a higher piezoelectric constant in comparison with those predicted values in other two-dimensional (2D) materials. This work aims to investigate theoretically the material properties for piezo-phototronics. The performance of 2D piezo-phototronic solar cells has been studied using by monolayer group IV monochalcogenides: SnSe, SnS, GeSe, and GeS metal–semiconductor contact. The modulation ratio by piezoelectric charges has been investigated under applied external strains. The piezo-phototronic effect plays a key role on the enhancement of the performance in solar cell. This study opens a new window to produce high-efficiency solar cell based on the promising group IV monochalcogenides.

Recent Advances in 2D Metal Monochalcogenides

“…[31,35,84,88] ries of reports have been focused on the theoretical investigation of such properties for monolayer 2D MMCs. [31,33,35,39,42,80,[84][85][86][87][88][89] In particular, Feng and co-workers [35] systematically investigated the electronic mobility in monolayer MMCs and adopted a phononlimited scattering model to interpret the physical phenomena occurring. In a 2D system, the mobility is provided by the formula…”

“…[206] In a similar manner, in-plane anisotropic layered 2D MMCs have recently been investigated as potentially promising materials in photovoltaics. [38,41,42,109,172,[207][208][209][210][211][212] Dai and co-workers [41] have designed and investigated a new photovoltaic system based on novel 2D MMCs. In particular, the photoresponse and the photovoltaic performance of GeS, GeSe, SnS, and SnSe monolayers were evaluated by means of theoretical quantum transport simulations.…”

“…In particular, the obtained The significant rise of J sc observed in the bi-component cell can be attributed to the enhanced absorption, at higher wavelengths, by the GeSe layer. In another work, Michael et al [42] have investigated the performance of 2D piezo-phototronic based solar cells. In such devices, an external strain was applied to monitor the piezo-phototronic effect.…”

“…During the last decade, a series of reports have been focused on the theoretical investigation of such properties for monolayer 2D MMCs. [ 31,33,35,39,42,80,84–89 ] In particular, Feng and co‐workers [ 35 ] systematically investigated the electronic mobility in monolayer MMCs and adopted a phonon‐limited scattering model to interpret the physical phenomena occurring. In a 2D system, the mobility is provided by the formula where is the effective mass of the electron along the transport direction and m d is the average carrier effective mass.…”

“…These 2D materials possess intriguing optical, electronic, mechanical, and optoelectronic properties, and are being explored for exhibit orthorhombic crystal structure (Pnma space group) with low crystal symmetry C 2 , in which the inversion symmetry is further broken, which makes them possible to observe new order parameters (spin-orbital coupling) and polarization properties. Many exotic phenomena have been predicted on a monolayer MMCs, including valley physics, [37] spontaneous polarization and bulk photovoltaic effect, [38][39][40][41] piezo-phototronic, [42] giant piezoelectricity, [43] ferroelectricity, [44][45][46][47] multiferroics of ferroelectricity, [48] and ferroelasticity. [49] However, valley selective dichroism, [50] and more than 90% room temperature valley polarization (VP) degree [51] in SnS provide a completely novel platform for valleytronics.…”