Multiferroic oxide BFCNT/BFCO heterojunction black silicon photovoltaic devices.

Multiferroics are being studied increasingly in applications of photovoltaic devices for the carrier separation driven by polarization and magnetization. In this work, textured black silicon photovoltaic devices are fabricated with BiFeCoNiTiO/BiFeCrO (BFCNT/BFCO) multiferroic heterojunction as an absorber and graphene as an anode. The structural and optical analyses showed that the bandgap of Aurivillius-typed BFCNT and double perovskite BFCO are 1.62 ± 0.04 eV and 1.74 ± 0.04 eV respectively, meeting the requirements for the active layer in solar cells. Under the simulated AM 1.5 G illumination, the black silicon photovoltaic devices delivered a photoconversion efficiency (η) of 3.9% with open-circuit voltage (V), short-circuit current density (J), and fill factor (FF) of 0.75 V, 10.8 mA cm, and 48.3%, respectively. Analyses of modulation of an applied electric and magnetic field on the photovoltaic properties revealed that both polarization and magnetization of multiferroics play an important role in tuning the built-in electric field and the transport mechanisms of charge carriers, thus providing a new idea for the design of future high-performance multiferroic oxide photovoltaic devices.