X-ray-Induced Pyroelectric Effect in a Perovskite Ferroelectric Drives Low Detection Limit Self-Powered Responses

Yu Ma; Wenjing Li; Yi Liu; Wuqian Guo; Haojie Xu; Shiguo Han; Liwei Tang; Qingshun Fan; Junhua Luo; Zhihua Sun

doi:10.1021/acscentsci.3c01274

X-ray-Induced Pyroelectric Effect in a Perovskite Ferroelectric Drives Low Detection Limit Self-Powered Responses

ACS Cent Sci. 2023 Dec 11;9(12):2350-2357. doi: 10.1021/acscentsci.3c01274. eCollection 2023 Dec 27.

Authors

Yu Ma^{1

2}, Wenjing Li^{1

2}, Yi Liu¹, Wuqian Guo^{1

2}, Haojie Xu^{1

2}, Shiguo Han¹, Liwei Tang¹, Qingshun Fan^{1

2}, Junhua Luo^{1

2}, Zhihua Sun^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, People's Republic of China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

The light-induced pyroelectric effect (LPE) has shown a great promise in the application of optoelectronic devices, especially for self-powered detection and imaging. However, it is quite challenging and scarce to achieve LPE in the X-ray region. For the first time, we report X-ray LPE in a single-phase ferroelectric of (NPA)₂(EA)₂Pb₃Br₁₀ (1, NPA = neopentylamine, EA = ethylamine), adopting a two-dimensional trilayered perovskite motif, which has a large spontaneous polarization of ∼3.7 μC/cm². Its ferroelectricity allows for significant LPE in the wavelength range of ordinary visible light. Strikingly, the X-ray LPE is observed in 1, which endows remarkable self-powered X-ray responses at 0 bias, including sensitivity up to 225 μC Gy^-1 cm^-2 and a low detection limit of ∼83.4 nGy s^-1, being almost 66 times lower than the requirement for medical diagnostics (∼5.5 μGy s^-1). This work not only develops a new mode for X-ray detection but also provides valuable insights for future photoelectric device application.