Issue 24, 2021

Bi2WO6 lead-free ferroelectrics: microstructure design, polar behavior and photovoltaic performance

Abstract

Bi2WO6 (BWO) is a promising ferroelectric material because of its high Curie temperatures and environmentally benign nature. However, the mica-like grain growth habit and large leakage current make it difficult to obtain excellent polar properties when preparing BWO bulk materials by a conventional route. Here, through the precursor morphology control, combined with spark plasma sintering (SPS), we prepared for the first time BWO ceramics with different microstructures: randomly oriented polyhedron grains (R-BWO) and highly aligned plate-like grains (T-BWO). Excellent polar properties are successfully obtained in both kinds of BWO ceramics. In particular, T-BWO ceramics exhibit a large remnant polarization (Pr) of ∼23.6 μC cm−2 and a piezoelectric coefficient (d33) of ∼18.2 pC N−1, almost twice that of the R-BWO ceramics. Moreover, bulk photovoltaic effect investigations indicate that the photovoltaic properties can be modulated through microstructure design, specifically, T-BWO has a short circuit photocurrent of ∼−1.50 nA, which is almost four times that of R-BWO. The underlying mechanisms are further demonstrated by crystal structure and microstructure analysis. This study provides a simple and feasible microstructure engineering approach to manipulate not only the ferroelectricity but also the photovoltaic properties of layer-structured materials.

Graphical abstract: Bi2WO6 lead-free ferroelectrics: microstructure design, polar behavior and photovoltaic performance

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
12 Mar 2021
Accepted
18 May 2021
First published
18 May 2021

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2021,9, 7539-7544

Bi2WO6 lead-free ferroelectrics: microstructure design, polar behavior and photovoltaic performance

X. He, C. Chen, Y. Gong, H. Zeng and Z. Yi, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2021, 9, 7539 DOI: 10.1039/D1TC01156A

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