https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-024-04994-7
Regular Article
Light-assisted patterning of salt precipitation on photovoltaic LiNbO3 substrates
1
Departamento de Física de Materiales, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain
2
Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales Nicolás Cabrera, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain
Received:
3
November
2023
Accepted:
12
February
2024
Published online:
4
March
2024
The control of salt crystallization on a surface has important implications in many technological and industrial applications. In this work, we propose and demonstrate an optoelectrical method to define and control the spatial distribution of salt crystallization on a lithium niobate photovoltaic substrate. It is based on the bulk photovoltaic effect that generates an electric field on the illuminated regions of the crystal. The salt only crystallizes on these illuminated regions of the substrate. Single salt spots or more complicated spatial patterns, defined by the light intensity spatial distribution, have been achieved. In particular, some results have been obtained using scanning/moving laser beams, i.e., “drawing” the saline patterns. The role of light exposure time and salt concentration in the aqueous solution has been studied. The method has been checked with several salts with successful results showing its general applicability. A discussion on the possible physical mechanisms behind the method and their implication for the operation of photovoltaic platforms in other applications is also included.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-024-04994-7.
© The Author(s) 2024
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
