Acousto-drag photovoltaic effect by piezoelectric integration of two-dimensional semiconductors

Jiaming Gu; Yicheng Mou; Jianwen Ma; Haonan Chen; Chuanxin Zhang; Yuxiang Wang; Jiayu Wang; Hangwen Guo; Wu Shi; Xiang Yuan; Xue Jiang; Dean Ta; Jian Shen; Cheng Zhang

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c02941

arXiv · 2312.15939

Acousto-drag photovoltaic effect by piezoelectric integration of two-dimensional semiconductors

Jiaming Gu·Yicheng Mou·Jianwen Ma·Haonan Chen·Chuanxin Zhang·Yuxiang Wang·Jiayu Wang·Hangwen Guo·Wu Shi·Xiang Yuan·Xue Jiang·Dean Ta·Jian Shen·Cheng Zhang

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Abstract

Light-to-electricity conversion is crucial for energy harvesting and photodetection, requesting efficient electron-hole pair separation to prevent recombination. Traditional junction-based mechanisms using built-in electric fields fail in non-barrier regions. Homogeneous material harvesting under photovoltaic effect is appealing but only realized in non-centrosymmetric systems via bulk photovoltaic effect. Here we report the realization of photovoltaic effect by employing surface acoustic waves (SAW) to generate zero-bias photocurrent in a conventional layered semiconductor MoSe2. SAW induces periodic modulation to electronic bands and drags the photoexcited pairs toward the travelling direction. The photocurrent is extracted by a local barrier. The separation of generation and extraction processes suppresses recombination and yields large nonlocal photoresponse. We distinguish acousto-electric drag and electron-hole pair separation effect by fabricating devices of different configurations. The acousto-drag photovoltaic effect, enabled by piezoelectric integration, offers an efficient light-to-electricity conversion method, independent of semiconductor crystal symmetry.

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Jiaming Gu, Yicheng Mou, Jianwen Ma, Haonan Chen, Chuanxin Zhang, Yuxiang Wang, Jiayu Wang, Hangwen Guo, Wu Shi, Xiang Yuan, Xue Jiang, Dean Ta, Jian Shen, Cheng Zhang. 2023-12-26. Acousto-drag photovoltaic effect by piezoelectric integration of two-dimensional semiconductors. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c02941

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