Premium
Progress in Piezotronics and Piezo‐Phototronics
Author(s) -
Wang Zhong Lin
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.201104365
Subject(s) - materials science , piezoelectricity , optoelectronics , wurtzite crystal structure , charge carrier , semiconductor , nanotechnology , heterojunction , engineering physics , physics , zinc , metallurgy , composite material
The fundamental principle of piezotronics and piezo‐phototronics were introduced by Wang in 2007 and 2010, respectively. Due to the polarization of ions in a crystal that has non‐central symmetry in materials such as the wurtzite structured ZnO, GaN and InN, a piezoelectric potential (piezopotential) is created in the crystal by applying a stress. Owing to the simultaneous possession of piezoelectricity and semiconductor properties, the piezopotential created in the crystal has a strong effect on the carrier transport at the interface/junction. Piezotronics is about the devices fabricated using the piezopotential as a “gate” voltage to tune/control charge carrier transport at a contact or junction. The piezo‐phototronic effect is to use the piezopotential to control the carrier generation, transport, separation and/or recombination for improving the performance of optoelectronic devices, such as photon detector, solar cell and LED. This manuscript reviews the updated progress in the two new fields. A perspective is given about their potential applications in sensors, human‐silicon technology interfacing, MEMS, nanorobotics and energy sciences.