Photoresponse of high quality epitaxial BiFeO3 films grown through hydrothermal method and rapid microwave assisted method

High quality BiFeO3 film with enhanced remanent polarization and magnetization attracts much interest for its great application potential in information storage and photoelectric devices. Here we grew single-crystal epitaxial BiFeO3 film on SrTiO3 substrate through hydrothermal method at low temperature, the film has a quality higher than any reported BiFeO3 films grown through hydrothermal method. Furthermore, BiFeO3 film was grown through a 25 min rapid microwave-assisted hydrothermal process. The two BiFeO3 films exhibited obvious light response to periodically switching on and off of a LED light, and the film grown through microwave-assisted hydrothermal method produced a 4.7V open-circuit voltage exceeding the band gap of BiFeO3 originating from the ferroelectric photovoltaic effect. These results demonstrate that hydrothermal and microwave-assisted hydrothermal method are simple, inexpensive and rapid to grow high quality epitaxial BiFeO3 film with potential application in photoelectric detection and photovoltaic.

Automated summary

High quality epitaxial BiFeO3 films were grown on SrTiO3 substrate using hydrothermal and microwave-assisted hydrothermal methods, with enhanced remanent polarization and magnetization. The films exhibited a clear light response and the microwave-assisted hydrothermal grown film showed an open-circuit voltage exceeding the band gap of BiFeO3 due to the ferroelectric photovoltaic effect. These methods provide a simple, inexpensive, and rapid way to grow high quality BiFeO3 films with potential applications in photoelectric detection and photovoltaic.