Plasmonic gold nanorods mediated p-BFCrO/n-rGO heterojunction in realizing efficient ferroelectric photovoltaic devices

Abstract In this work, we introduce a chemically synthesised lead-free ferroelectric thin film 2% Cr doped BiFeO3 (BFCrO) for possible photovoltaic (PV) applications. The first set of PV devices were fabricated onto ITO/glass electrode by utilizing BFCrO as an active material and Pt as top electrode. The obtained ferroelectric and electrical results were systematically compared with the conventional BFO and the BFCrO device was found to be a potential one. To further enhance the PV performance, highly conducting n-type reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was heterogeneously employed as an electron transport layer (ETL) in between ITO and BFCrO. Surprisingly, the JSC was significantly improved by 1000 times along with amended VOC and FF as compared to the standalone BFCrO device. Furthermore, an attempt has been made to embed plasmonic Au nanorods (NRs) in between rGO and BFCrO, which alleviates the absorbance in heterojunction through localized surface plasmonic effect, ultimately offered remarkable PV performances than conventional BFO one. The Au NRs based BFCrO/rGO PV device exhibited an increased VOC and JSC of 0.63 V and 2.56 mA/cm2, respectively as compared to the BFCrO/rGO device with VOC (0.56 V) and JSC (1.54 mA/cm2). Effort was devoted to establish ferroelectricity in BFCrO and the effect of positive and negative polarizations on J-V measurements were observed in with or without Au NRs based devices. The modulation in charge transport with polarization field and improved photoresponse were explained by projecting a band diagram, which also provides a comprehensive understanding on the operation principle of the fabricated devices.