Enhanced switchable photovoltaic response and ferromagnetic of Co-doped BiFeO3 based ferroelectric thin films

To settle the growing energy crisis, photovoltaic, as the renewable solar energy, based on ferroelectric oxides has recently attracted significant attention for the breakthrough in photovoltaic application. Herein, we deposited the ferroelectric Bi0.925Sm0.075Fe0.95Co0.05O3 (BSFC) thin films on FTO glass substrates along with uniform microstructure and multi-orientation polycrystalline. The BSFC thin films possess good ferroelectric properties with a standard hysteresis loop attributed to Co-substitution. Intriguingly, an enhancement of both photocurrent (90.4%) and photovoltage (40.0%) in BSFC thin films has been observed, indicating that the ferroelectric polarization plays an important role in the bulk effect of ferroelectric photovoltaic. Furthermore, the Co-substitution induced an increasing trend in saturation magnetization of 6.2 emu/cm3 in BSFC thin films. The enhancement of the multiferroics and photovoltaic properties facilitates its applications of energy conversion and information storage.