- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Applied

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Room-Temperature Hot-Polaron Photovoltaics in the Charge-Ordered State of a Layered Perovskite Oxide Heterojunction

B. Kressdorf1, T. Meyer2, A. Belenchuk3,4, O. Shapoval3,4, M. ten Brink5, S. Melles1, U. Ross1, J. Hoffmann1, V. Moshnyaga3 et al.

M. Seibt2, P. Blöchl5,6, and C. Jooss1,*

  • 1University of Goettingen, Institute of Materials Physics, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Goettingen, Germany
  • 2University of Goettingen, 4th Physical Institute – Solids and Nanostructures, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Goettingen, Germany
  • 3University of Goettingen, 1st Physical Institute, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Goettingen, Germany
  • 4IIEN, Academy of Sciences in Moldova, str. Academiei 3/3, MD-2028, Chisinau, Moldova
  • 5Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Goettingen, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Goettingen, Germany
  • 6Institute for Theoretical Physics, Clausthal University of Technology, Leibnizstr. 10, D-38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

  • *cjooss@gwdg.de
PDF

Phys. Rev. Applied 14, 054006 – Published 4 November, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.14.054006

Abstract

Harvesting of solar energy by hot carriers from optically induced intraband transitions offers new perspectives for photovoltaic energy conversion. Clearly, mechanisms slowing down hot-carrier thermalization constitute a fundamental core of such pathways of third-generation photovoltaics. The intriguing concept of hot polarons stabilized by long-range phonon correlations in charge-ordered strongly correlated three-dimensional metal-oxide perovskite films has emerged and been demonstrated for Pr0.7Ca0.3MnO3 at low temperature. In this work, a tailored approach to extending such processes to room temperature is presented. It consists of a specially designed epitaxial growth of two-dimensional Ruddlesden-Popper Pr0.5Ca1.5MnO4 films on Nb:SrTiO3 with a charge-ordering transition at TCO ∼ 320 K. This opens the route to a different phonon-bottleneck strategy of slowing down carrier relaxation by strong coupling of electrons to cooperative lattice modes.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (40)

  1. M. Green, Third Generation Photovoltaics (Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, 2003).
  2. M. A. Green and S. P. Bremner, Energy conversion approaches and materials for high-efficiency photovoltaics, Nat. Mater. 16, 23 (2017).
  3. W. Shockley and H. J. Queisser, Detailed balance limit of efficiency of p-n junction solar cells, J. Appl. Phys. 32, 510 (1961).
  4. H. Benisty, C. M. Sottomayor-Torres, and C. Weisbuch, Intrinsic mechanism for the poor luminescence properties of quantum-box systems, Phys. Rev. B 44, 10 945 (1991).
  5. G. Conibeer, S. Shrestha, S. Huang, R. Patterson, H. Xia, Y. Feng, P. Zhang, N. Gupta, M. Tayebjee, S. Smyth, et al., Hot carrier solar cell absorber prerequisites and candidate material systems, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. C. 135, 124 (2015).
  6. S. Sauvage, P. Boucaud, R. P. S. M. Lobo, F. Bras, G. Fishman, R. Prazeres, F. Glotin, J. M. Ortega, and J.-M. Gérard, Long Polaron Lifetime in InAs/GaAs Self-Assembled Quantum Dots, Dots Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 177402 (2002).
  7. W. A. Tisdale, K. J. Williams, B. A. Timp, D. J. Norris, E. S. Aydil, and X.-Y. Zhu, Hot-Electron transfer from semiconductor nanocrystals, Science 328, 1543 (2010).
  8. S. Hameau, Y. Guldner, O. Verzelen, R. Ferreira, G. Bastard, J. Zeman, A. Lemaitre, and J. M. Gérard, Strong Electron-Phonon Coupling Regime in Quantum Dots: Evidence for Everlasting Resonant Polarons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 4152 (1999).
  9. J. Moore Frost, L. D. Whalley, and A. Walsh, Slow cooling of Hot polarons in halide perovskite solar cells, ACS Energy Lett. 2, 2647 (2017).
  10. M. Park, A. J. Neukirch, S. E. Reyes-Lillo, M. Lai, S. R. Ellis, D. Dietze, J. B. Neaton, P. Yang, S. Tretiak, and R. A. Mathies, Excited-state vibrational dynamics toward the polaron in methylammonium lead iodide perovskite, Nat. Commun. 9, 2525 (2018).
  11. D. Ghosh, E. Welch, A. J. Neukirch, A. Zakhidov, and S. Tretiak, Polarons in halide perovskites: A perspective, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 11, 3271 (2020).
  12. M. Lira-Cantu, The Future of Semiconductor Oxides in Next-Generation Solar Cells (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2018).
  13. O. Bidault, M. Maglione, M. Actis, M. Kchikech, and B. Salce, Polaronic relaxation in perovskites, Phys. Rev. B 52, 4191 (1995).
  14. G. Zhao, K. Conder, H. Keller, and K. A. Müller, Giant oxygen isotope shift in the magnetoresistive perovskite La1−xCaxMnO3+y, Nature 381, 676 (1996).
  15. G. Zhao, Y. S. Wang, D. J. Kang, W. Prellier, M. Rajeswari, H. Keller, T. Venkatesan, C. W. Chu, and R. L. Greene, Evidence for the immobile bipolaron formation in the paramagnetic state of the magnetoresistive manganites, Phys. Rev. B 62, R11 949 (2000).
  16. M. Sotoudeh, S. Rajpurohit, P. E. Blöchl, D. Mierwaldt, J. Norpoth, V. Roddatis, S. Mildner, B. Ifland, and C. Jooss, Electronic structure of Pr1−xCaxMnO3, Phys. Rev. B 95, 235150 (2017).
  17. J. H. Jung, K. H. Kim, D. J. Eom, T. W. Noh, E. J. Choi, J. Yu, Y. S. Kwon, and Y. Chung, Determination of electronic band structures of CaMnO3 and LaMnO3 using optical-conductivity analyses, Phys. Rev. B 55, 15489 (1997).
  18. S. Mildner, J. Hoffmann, C. Jooss, P. E. Bloechl, and S. Techert, Temperature- and doping-dependent optical absorption in the small-polaron system Pr1−xCaxMnO3, Phys. Rev B. 92, 035145 (2015).
  19. D. Raiser, S. Mildner, B. Ifland, M. Sotoudeh, P. Blöchl, S. Techert, and Ch. Jooss, Contribution of Jahn-Teller and charge transfer excitations to the photovoltaic effect of manganite/titanite heterojunctions, Adv. Energy Mater. 7, 1602174 (2017).
  20. P. Beaud, A. Caviezel, S. O. Mariager, L. Rettig, G. Ingold, C. Dornes, S.-W. Huang, J. A. Johnson, M. Radovic, T. Huber, et al., A time-dependent order parameter for ultrafast photoinduced phase transitions, Nat. Mater. 13, 923 (2014).
  21. B. Ifland, J. Hoffmann, B. Kressdorf, V. Roddatis, M. Seibt, and Ch. Jooss, Contribution of Jahn-Teller and charge transfer excitations to the photovoltaic effect of manganite/titanite heterojunctions, New J. Phys. 19, 063046 (2017).
  22. F. de la Peña, E. Prestat, V. T. Fauske, et al., 2019 hyperspy/hyperspy: v1.4.2.
  23. See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.14.054006 for a detailed description of electrical and optical characterization, density of state calculations, and additional x-ray diffraction and TEM studies of IBS-prepared thin films. Includes Refs. [16, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40].
  24. M. Ebrahimizadeh Abrishami, M. Risch, J. Scholz, V. Roddatis, N. Osterthun, and C. Jooss, Oxygen evolution at manganite perovskite ruddlesden-popper type particles: Trends of activity on structure, valence and covalence, Materials 9, 921 (2016).
  25. M. Jungbauer, S. Hühn, R. Egovail, H. Tan, J. Verbeeck, G. Tandeloo, and V. Moshnyaga, Atomic layer epitaxy of ruddlesden-popper SrO(SrTiO3)n films by means of metalorganic aerosol deposition, APL 105, 251603 (2014).
  26. A. Belenchuk, O. Shapoval, V. Roddatis, V. Bruchmann-Bamberg, K. Samwer, and V. Moshnyaga, Ruddlesden-Popper interface in correlated manganite heterostructures induces magnetic decoupling and dead layer reduction, APL 109, 232405 (2016).
  27. M. Ibarra, R. Retoux, M. Hervieu, C. Autret, A. Maignan, C. Martin, and B. Raveau, Charge–orbital ordering above room temperature in the 2D Pr1−xCa1+xMnO4 manganites, J. Solid State Chem. 170, 361 (2003).
  28. V. V. Bryksin and H. Böttger, Hopping Conduction in Solids, 1st ed. (VCH, Weinheim, 1985).
  29. J. Hoffmann, P. Moschkau, S. Mildner, J. Norpoth, Ch. Jooss, L. Wu, and Y. Zhu, Effects of interaction and disorder on polarons in colossal resistance manganite Pr0.68Ca0.32MnO3 thin films, Mater. Res. Express 1, 046403 (2014).
  30. M. A. Majidi, E. Thoeng, P. K. Gogoi, F. Wendt, S. H. Wang, I. Santoso, T. C. Asmara, I. P. Handayani, P. H. M. van Loosdrecht, A. A. Nugroho, et al., Temperature-dependent and anisotropic optical response of layered Pr0.5Ca1.5MnO4 probed by spectroscopic ellipsometry, Phys. Rev. B 87, 235135 (2013).
  31. D. Emin, Optical properties of large and small polarons and bipolarons, Phys. Rev. B 48, 13691 (1993).
  32. T. Holstein, Studies of polaron motion, studies of polaron motion: Part I. The molecular-crystal model, Ann. Phys. 8, 325 (1959).
  33. J. F. Xi, K. Zhao, H. Ni, W. F. Xiang, X. Feng, Q. Sun, Z. Q. Lu, and L. Z. Xiao, Giant negative photoresistance of epitaxialmanganite La2/3Ca1/3MnO3−δ film, Sci. China 58, 122402 (2015).
  34. S. Rajpurohit, Ch. Jooss, and P. E. Blöchl, Evolution of the magnetic and polaronic order of Pr1/2Ca1/2MnO3 following an ultrashort light pulse, Phys. Rev. B 102, 014302 (2020).
  35. P. Beaud, S. L. Johnson, E. Vorobeva, U. Staub, R. A. De Souza, C. J. Milne, Q. X. Jia, and G. Ingold, Ultrafast Structural Phase Transition Driven by Photoinduced Melting of Charge and Orbital Order, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 155702 (2009).
  36. I. P. Handayani, A. A. Nugroho, S. Riyadi, G. R. Blake, N. Mufti, T. T. M. Palstra1, and P. H. M. van Loosdrecht, Correlation between lattice vibrations with charge, orbital, and spin ordering in the layered manganite Pr0.5Ca1.5MnO4, Phys. Rev. B 92, 205101 (2015).
  37. P. E. Blöchl, Projector augmented-wave method, Phys. Rev. B 50, 17953 (1994).
  38. Peter E. Blöchl and Clemens Först, „Node-less atomic wave functions, Pauli repulsion and systematic projector augmentation” arXiv:1210.5937 [physics.chem-ph].
  39. O. K. Andersen and O. Jepsen, Explicit, First-Principles Tight-Binding Theory, Phys. Rev. Lett. 53, 2571 (1984).
  40. E. O. Wollan and W. C. Koehler, Neutron diffraction study of the magnetic properties of the series of perovskite-type compounds [(1−x)La,xCa]MnO3, Phys. Rev. 100, 545 (1955).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Applied 14, 054006– Published 4 November, 2020
  • Received 5 June 2020
  • Revised 25 September 2020
  • Accepted 9 October 2020
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation