A revitalized interest in ferroic materials has been generated by reports of the abnormal photovoltaic (APV) effect in multiferroic BiFeO3 (BFO) epitaxial thin films.The APV effect involves the generation of an open circuit voltage (Voc) that is higher than the band gap of the material when illuminated with light of appropriate energy. This is unlike the case of conventional semiconductor based photovoltaic devices, where the Voc is limited by the band gap of the material. Consequently, the observation of APV effect in ferroelectric materials has opened doors to the possibility of realizing photovoltaic devices that are free of pn-junctions and exhibit high voltage.  Initial reports attributed the appearance of APV effect in BFO films to an efficient charge separation of carriers at domain walls under illumination.1Subsequent studies performed on a microscopic and macroscopic level have revealed that essentially the bulk photovoltaic (BPV) effect is responsible for the APV effect.In the past, the BPV effect has been studied in other well known non-centrosymmteric and ferroelectric materials like BaTiO3 (BTO), LiNbO3 (LNO). The BPV effect is primarily a tensorial property of the material and is defined by a BPV tensor that is analogous to the piezoelectric tensor of a ferroelectric material. The generation of above band gap Voc is directly proportional to the photovoltaic (PV) current under illumination and inversely proportional to the effective conductivity of sample. Theoretical work, based on the Boltzmann transport equation, indicated two conditions for the BPV effect. Firstly, an asymmetric optical generation of charge carriers in k-space is required. This will yield “shift currents” under illumination which are primarily responsible for a macroscopic PV current and eventually an abnormally high Voc. This condition is realized in ferroelectric materials in which the symmetry of inversion is inherently broken. Secondly, the recombination process of the photo-generated carriers should be different from a simple band-band transition. This condition can be realized if there are sub-band gap states in the material. Both of these conditions were found to be fulfilled in the case of BFO thin films and, as a result, Voc values in excess of 50 V were obtained. Subsequently, the role of domain walls in the APV effect was revealed and, contrary to the initial model, was found to be detrimental to the effect.