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Updated: Oct 11, 2025

Measuring Magnetically-Tuned Ferroelectric Polarization in Liquid Crystals
Published on: August 15, 2018
Quantitative investigation of polarization-dependent photocurrent in ferroelectric thin films
Komalika Rani1, Sylvia Matzen1, Stéphane Gable1
1Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies (C2N), 10 Boulevard Thomas Gobert, 91120 Palaiseau, France.
Abstract:
Ferroelectric thin films are investigated for their potential in photovoltaic (PV) applications, owing to their high open-circuit voltage and switchable photovoltaic effect. The direction of the ferroelectric polarization can control the sign of the photocurrent through the ferroelectric layer, theoretically allowing for 100% switchability of the photocurrent with the polarization, which is particularly interesting for photo-ferroelectric memories. However, the quantitative relationship between photocurrent and polarization remains little studied. In this work, a careful investigation of the polarization-dependent photocurrent of epitaxial Pb(Zr, Ti)O3thin films has been carried out, and has provided a quantitative determination of the unswitchable part of ferroelectric polarization. These results represent a systematic approach to study and optimize the switchability of photocurrent, and more broadly to get important insights on the ferroelectric behavior in all types of ferroelectric layers in which pinned polarization is difficult to investigate.
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