The anomalous photovoltaic effect is a photovoltaic phenomenon seen in certain semiconductors and insulators in which the open circuit photovoltage produced by light is larger, sometimes by thousands of volts, than the material own band gap would allow for an ordinary photovoltaic cell. The effect comes at a cost: the short circuit current it produces is very low, so its overall power generation efficiency is poor and materials that show it are not used in practical power systems. It appears in three main forms, through microscopic grains in a polycrystalline material acting like many tiny photovoltaic cells wired in series, through parallel stripes of ferroelectric domains, and through non centrosymmetric single crystals, where an asymmetry in how excited electrons relax produces what is called the bulk photovoltaic effect. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
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MaturityTRL 3: Experimental Proof of Concept 1 Invented Year Sources
1. Wikipedia: Anomalous photovoltaic effect
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This effect was discovered by Starkiewicz et al. in 1946 on PbS films and was later observed on other semiconducting polycrystalline films including CdTe, Silicon, Germanium, ZnTe and InP, as well as on amorphous silicon films and in nanocrystalline silicon systems.
In Group: Physical Effects Behind Solar Cells, Lead
The anomalous photovoltaic effect (APE) is a type of photovoltaic effect which occurs in certain semiconductors and insulators.
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