Short-circuit photocurrent in epitaxial lead zirconate-titanate thin films

The short-circuit photocurrent (SC-PHC) in the 200-800 nm wavelength domain was used to investigate the photovoltaic properties of the metal-ferroelectric-metal structures having SrRu[O.sub.3] metal oxide electrodes and Pb(Zr, Ti)[O.sub.3] (PZT) as ferroelectric layer. The band-gap energies evaluated from the PHC spectral distribution for different PZT compositions range between 3.9 to 4.4 eV and it is constantly higher than the reported experimental values on polycrystalline films but agree well with theoretical values.