We hear a lot about 10X batteries, but 1000X solar cells? Layering up may be stylish and even practical in the fashion world, and in solar cells may be a chance to unite otherwise dissimilar materials with otherwise limited light-to-electric conversion capabilities. That strategy produced solar cells with 1000x that. That’s what researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) found when they created crystalline layers of layers of barium titanate (a mixed oxide of barium and titanium), strontium titanate and calcium titanate which they alternately placed on top of one another. Researchers found high increases in responses from the layered oxides because of higher permittivity – electrons able to flow more freely. The team’s paper, “Strongly enhanced and tunable photovoltaic effect in ferroelectric-paraelectric superlattices,” appears in the June 2 issue of the journal Science Advances. A Titanate Sandwich Barium titanate (BaTiO3 or BTO) is a “common ferroelectric material” used to manufacture electronic components such as capacitors. It is, “a popular …
