Influence of ferroelectricity on the photoelectric effect of LiNbO3

A comparison between domain dependent photochemical and photoelectric cation reduction in LiNbO(3) is presented. The reduction in photoelectric threshold for LiNbO(3) due to the depolarization field allows UV irradiation to produce free electrons that can participate in photochemical reduction in silver nitrate. This is in addition to domain directed photophysics, where influences on the space charge layer due to the internal dipole of a ferroelectric determine the carrier at the surface. We show that the interaction of photoelectric and domain dependent influences is observed in LiNbO(3) due to the low electron affinity (similar to 1-1.5 eV) and band bending (0.3-0.8 eV). (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.