2026-10-11T19:12:44Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/33754651 2026-09-14T19:40:54Z portal_1197 item_type_3 month_year_09_2026

Data for Flexo-photovoltaic effect Ming-Min Yang (6369152) Dong Jik Kim (2431201) M. (Marin) Alexe (24807973) Photovoltaic effect Semiconductors -- Electric properties Silicon solar cells Solar cells -- Materials Migrated from ePrints It is highly desirable to discover photovoltaic mechanisms that enable a higher efficiency of solar cells. Here, we report that the bulk photovoltaic effect, which is free from the thermodynamic Shockley-Queisser limit but usually manifested only in noncentrosymmetric (piezoelectric or ferroelectric) materials, can be realized in any semiconductor, including silicon, by mediation of flexoelectric effect. We introduce strain gradients using either an atomic force microscope or a micron-scale indentation system, creating giant photovoltaic currents from centrosymmetric single crystals of SrTiO3, TiO2, and Si. This strain-gradient-induced bulk photovoltaic effect, which we call the flexo-photovoltaic effect, functions in the absence of a p-n junction. This finding may extend present solar cell technologies by boosting the solar energy conversion efficiency from a wide pool of established semiconductors.<br><br>Excel and Mathematica files for figures 1,2, 3, 4, S2, S3, S4, S5, S9, S9, S11, S12, S13, S14, S15 2018-04-18T00:00:00Z Dataset Dataset 10.82444/warw.33754651.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Data_for_Flexo-photovoltaic_effect/33754651 CC BY-SA 4.0