Phonon Influence on Bulk Photovoltaic Effect in the Ferroelectric Semiconductor GeTe

The shift current (SHC) has been accepted as the primary mechanism of the bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE) in ferroelectrics, which is much different from the typical p-n junction-based photovoltaic mechanism in heterogeneous materials. In the present work, we use first-principles calculations to investigate the SHC response in the ferroelectric semiconductor GeTe, which is found possess a large SHC response due to its intrinsic narrow band gap and high covalency. We explore the changes of SHC response induced by phonon vibrations, and analytically fit current versus vibrational amplitude to reveal the quantitative relationships between vibrations and the SHC response. Furthermore, we demonstrate the temperature dependence of the SHC response by averaging the phonon vibration influence in the Brillouin zone. Our investigation provides an explicit experimental prediction about the temperature dependence of BPVE and can be extended to other classes of noncentrosymmetric materials.