Open Access Article
Kanming Shi
a,
Lorenzo Malavasi
b,
Fanni Juranyic and
Maths Karlsson
*a
aDepartment of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96, Göteborg, Sweden. E-mail: maths.karlsson@chalmers.se
bDepartment of Chemistry, University of Pavia & INSTM, Viale Taramelli 16, 27100, Pavia, Italy
cLaboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging, PSI Center for Neutron and Muon Sciences, Forschungsstrasse 111, 5232, Villigen, Switzerland
First published on 11th March 2026
We report results from quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS) measurements of the dynamical nature of diammonium cations in the two-dimensional (2D) metal halide perovskites (MHPs) (1,3-PDA)PbBr4 (PDA: phenylenediammonium), (1,4-PDA)PbBr4, and (1,4-XDA)PbBr4 (XDA: xylylenediammonium), and in the zero-dimensional (0D) perovskitoid (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6. QENS spectra measured upon heating from 44 to 350 K reveal the onset of picosecond timescale dynamics of the respective organic cation at around 225 K for 1,3-PDA, 250 K for 1,4-PDA, 250 K for 1,3-XDA, and 350 K for 1,4-XDA. Analyses of the elastic incoherent structure factor of the materials suggest that the observed dynamics can be assigned to three-fold (C3) and/or continuous rotational jump-diffusion dynamics of the terminal –NH3 groups of the respective organic cation for all materials. An average, apparent, residence time of the jump-diffusion dynamics has been extracted from the QENS data and takes values of about 1 ps for (1,3-PDA)PbBr4, 4–5 ps for (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,3-XDA)Pb2Br6, and 10 ps for (1,4-XDA)PbBr4 at 350 K. A comparison of the dynamical results with the length and symmetry of the organic cations suggests that a smaller organic cation (here PDA) and an asymmetric position of the two –NH3 groups (here 1,3-PDA and 1,3-XDA) correlate with a lower onset temperature and faster dynamics. A comparison of the dynamics results with the photoluminescence (PL) spectra of the materials may indicate that slower –NH3 dynamics correlates with a lower thermal stability of PL due to less dynamic disorder.
and the Dion–Jacobson type
—are attracting considerable interest for optoelectronic applications.1–4 In these structures, A and A′ are organic cations, and n denotes the number of stacked inorganic layers composed of octahedral MX6 units, where M is a metal cation and X is a halide ion. Amongst the 2D MHPs developed so far, most are based on monoammonium cations, whereas diammonium cations have been less explored.5–9
Recently, a new class of Dion–Jacobson type MHPs, with A = 1,3-phenylenediammonium (1,3-PDA, PDA = C6H5 (NH3)22+), 1,4-phenylenediammonium (1,4-PDA), and 1,4-xylylenediammonium (1,4-XDA, XDA = C6H5 (CH2NH3)22+), M = Pb, and X = Br, as well as the chemically similar but structurally dissimilar material (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6, were reported.10 The latter material exhibits isolated octahedral PbBr6 building blocks and may therefore be described as a zero-dimensional (0D) perovskitoid; see Fig. 1 for the crystal structure of each material. While all four materials show PL in the visible wavelength region upon excitation at 300 nm,10 the nature of the PL varies markedly between the different materials. Specifically, the materials with the relatively short organic cations, (1,3-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,4-PDA)PbBr4, exhibit relatively broad PL in the wavelength range of 450–750 nm, whereas the material with the relatively long organic cation, (1,4-XDA)PbBr4, exhibits a narrower PL in the wavelength range of 400–450 nm;10 the PL of (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6 has not yet been reported. Furthermore, the material with the more asymmetric organic cation, (1,3-PDA)PbBr4, generally exhibits a weaker PL compared to (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,4-XDA)PbBr4, which have been correlated to the degree of distortion of the octahedral PbBr6 building blocks.10
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Fig. 1 Illustration of the crystal structures and organic cations of (a) (1,3-PDA)PbBr4 (monoclinic crystal structure with space group C2/c), (b) (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6 (monoclinic crystal structure with space group P21/c), (c) (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 (triclinic crystal structure with space group P ), and (d) (1,4-XDA)PbBr4 (monoclinic crystal structure with space group P21/c), according to ref. 10. The black lines refer to a unit cell. The lower part of the figure illustrates the C3 and continuous (Cont.) rotational diffusion of the terminal –NH3 groups, as well as C2 rotational diffusion of the phenylene group (–C6H4–) along its long molecular axis for (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,4-XDA)PbBr4 (see the Results section). Br atoms are indicated as green spheres, C atoms as brown spheres, N atoms as light blue spheres, and H atoms as light pink spheres. The Pb atoms located inside the PbBr6 octahedra are omitted. The crystal structures were plotted using VESTA.12 | ||
In addition to the correlation between the degree of octahedral distortion and PL properties, recent results based on QENS experiments on similar 2D MHPs, such as (nBA)2PbBr4, (ODA)PbBr4 and (GABA)2PbBr4, where nBA = n-butylammonium, ODA = 1,8-diaminooctammonium, and GABA = 4-aminobutyric acid, suggest that the PL properties are affected by the reorientational motions of the organic cations.11 In particular, it has been argued that the relatively smaller organic cation nBA is more dynamic inside the inorganic sublattice, which gives rise to a larger “dynamic radius”, which yields a closer to ideal A-site geometry, preventing local structural distortions and broadband PL.11
In this work, we investigate the reorientational dynamics of the organic cations in the novel 2D MHPs (1,3-PDA)PbBr4, (1,4-PDA)PbBr4, and (1,4-XDA)PbBr4, and in the 0D perovskitoid (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6 using QENS. The aim of this study is to determine the onset temperature and geometry of the dynamics, how it correlates with the materials’ PL properties, and how it compares with the organic cation dynamics in other, related, MHPs.
The data reduction was performed using the DAVE software.15 Data from the measurement of an empty sample cell at the same temperatures as those used for the samples were subtracted from the data for the samples, and all data were divided by the data from the measurement of a vanadium standard at 300 K to correct for variations in the efficiency of the different detectors. The measured scattering intensity is proportional to the dynamical structure factor S(Q, E), which results from the sum of coherent and incoherent scattering contributions. The S(Q, E) data were sliced into Q regions of 0.15 Å−1 width.
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| Fig. 2 Variable temperature Q-integrated dynamical structure factors, S(E), for the 2D MHPs (1,3-PDA)PbBr4, (1,4-PDA)PbBr4, and (1,4-XDA)PbBr4, and the 0D perovskitoid (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6. | ||
Our general observation is that the spectra for T > 200 K are markedly different from the spectra of the resolution function. The onset of quasielastic scattering is observed at approximately 225 K for (1,3-PDA)PbBr4, 250 K for (1,4-PDA)PbBr4, 250 K for (1,3-XDA)PbBr6, and 350 K for (1,4-XDA)PbBr4. In this context, we note that H contributes approximately 90% for (1,3-PDA)PbBr4, 90% for (1,4-PDA)PbBr4, 93% for (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6, and 92% for (1,4-XDA)PbBr4 to the total scattering cross section of the investigated materials, and H scatters mainly incoherently (cf. 80.3 barns for the incoherent scattering cross section and 1.8 barns for the coherent scattering cross section),16 which suggests that the quasielastic signal originates from the dynamics of the H of the organic cations. As reported in some other QENS studies of MHPs, strongly damped or overdamped vibrational dynamics of the octahedral units of the inorganic sublattice, here PbBr6, can also give rise to significant quasielastic scattering.18–21 However, such dynamics are usually observed in the vicinity of displacive phase transitions. Given the absence of such phase transitions in the materials studied here, combined with the much smaller contribution from PbBr6 to the total scattering cross section, it is reasonable to assume that the quasielastic signal can be approximated with the self-dynamics of the H of the organic cations.
In our more detailed analysis, S(Q, E) was fitted according to the following function:
![]() | (1) |
is a Lorentzian function of amplitude Iqe and half-width at half maximum (HWHM) γ. ⊗ denotes the convolution operation, R(Q, E) is the instrumental resolution function, and bkg(Q) is an E-independent background. The background relates to (in part) the scattering from phonons, which are centered at energy transfers
meV (see Fig. 3, which shows S(E) for an extended E-range). In comparison, the quasielastic signal typically has a FWHM of less than 1.5 meV, thus not strongly overlapping with the phonon peaks.
Fig. 4 shows, as an example, the fits for Q = 1.5 Å−1 and T = 350 K for all investigated materials, whereas the fits for all temperatures and selected Q-values are shown in Fig. S2–S5.
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| Fig. 4 S(Q, E) for the 2D MHPs (1,3-PDA)PbBr4, (1,4-PDA)PbBr4, and (1,4-XDA)PbBr4, and the 0D perovskitoid (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6 at Q = 1.5 Å−1 and T = 350 K. | ||
The quasielastic FWHM Γ (Γ = 2γ) is (within error) practically Q-independent for all materials (Fig. 5), which suggests that the dynamics associated with the quasielastic signal related to organic cation dynamics are localized in nature, in full agreement with other QENS studies of MHPs performed under similar experimental conditions.17,22 A characteristic timescale (τ) of the dynamics has been derived by taking τ = 2ħ/
,23 where
refers to the Q-averaged value of Γ for each temperature and material. The obtained τ values are in the range of 1–10 ps and vary significantly between the four samples (Table 1), with the timescale of the dynamics being fastest for (1,3-PDA)PbBr4 (1.2 ps at T = 350 K) and slowest for (1,4-XDA)PbBr4 (9.5 ps at T = 350 K). Note that the quasielastic signals at T < 250 K for (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6, and at T < 350 K for (1,4-XDA)PbBr4 were too weak to allow a reliable fit according to eqn (1).
| T (K) | (1,3-PDA)PbBr4 | (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6 | (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 | (1,4-XDA)PbBr4 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| τ (ps) | c | τ (ps) | c | τ (ps) | c | τ (ps) | c | |
| 200 | 3.3(2) | 0.66(1) | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 225 | 1.5(1) | 0.55(1) | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 250 | 0.9(1) | 0.47(1) | 3.7(4) | 0.91(1) | 5.4(5) | 0.91(1) | — | — |
| 300 | 1.1(1) | 0.39(1) | 5.0(3) | 0.71(1) | 4.8(3) | 0.82(1) | — | — |
| 350 | 1.2(1) | 0.25(1) | 4.0(2) | 0.54(1) | 4.7(2) | 0.71(1) | 9.5(10) | 0.63(1) |
![]() | (2) |
![]() | (3) |
sin(Nπ/Nmax) is the jump distance between position N and the original position on a circle with diameter D. The constant c accounts for additional elastic scattering, probably mostly due to H that experiences motions too slow to be resolved by the instrument resolution, but also to coherent scattering from the materials manifested as peaks in the energy-integrated neutron scattering data (Fig. S1). As can be seen, both models fit equally well to the experimental data and, hence, cannot be distinguished from each other in the relatively limited Q-range explored here. Other, geometrically feasible models, such as two-fold (C2) rotation of the whole organic cation around its short molecular axis, or a more complex model that assumes C3 rotation of the –NH3 group together with C2 rotation of the phenylene ring, were also considered; however, all of these models showed a worse fit to the data and, hence, were not further considered here (see Fig. S6).
The additional elastic scattering shows a general decrease with increasing temperature, in a quite systematic manner for all materials, which we interpret as an increase in the proportion of organic cations that undergo rotational diffusion of the terminal –NH3 groups within the observation time window; however, it must be noted that for (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 we have data at only one temperature (350 K). Furthermore, a somewhat larger fraction of the organic cations seems mobile in (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6 and (1,3-PDA)PbBr4, as compared to (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,4-XDA)PbBr4.
Intuitively, the onset and timescale of the dynamics should be correlated to the strength of the hydrogen-bonding interactions between the –NH3 groups and the surrounding Br atoms of the PbBr6 octahedra, but results from density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed no systematic differences in the electronic distribution of the investigated materials that would promote the formation of either stronger or weaker hydrogen bonds.10 Instead, we note that (1,3-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,3-XDA)Pb2Br6, i.e. the materials exhibiting the fastest dynamics, least “immobile” species, and lowest onset temperature of the dynamics, exhibit the largest level of distortion of the PbBr6 octahedral units, whereas the materials exhibiting the slowest dynamics and highest fraction of “immobile” species, (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,4-XDA)PbBr4, correlate with less octahedral distortion.10 Additionally, we note that materials having a longer organic cation (XDA) generally exhibit less and slower dynamics compared to their shorter-cation (PDA) counterparts. This feature may be attributed to the additional methylene group (–CH2–) in the longer cations. More specifically, we speculate that the dynamics of the –CH2– group could take up some thermal energy, which could, possibly, explain that the onset temperature of the dynamics is higher for (1,4-XDA)PbBr4 compared to (1,4-PDA)PbBr4, and for (1,3-XDA)2PbBr6 compared to (1,3-PDA)PbBr4. Additionally, we note that C2 rotational diffusion of the phenylene group (–C6H4–) around the long molecular axis may be more readily happening for the more symmetric molecules, 1,4-PDA and 1,4-XDA (see Fig. 1). This may modify the dynamical characteristics of the terminal –NH3 groups, such that some thermal energy is stored in –C6H4– dynamics rather than in –NH3 dynamics, thus further increasing its onset temperature.
In comparison to the literature, the observation of C3 and/or continuous rotational dynamics of the –NH3 groups on the picosecond timescale, as observed here, is in agreement with other QENS studies of MHPs, such as MAPbX3 (MA = methylammonium, CH3NH3; X = I, Br, Cl),24–27 and 2D (OA)2PbI4 (OA = C8H17NH3).17 However, it is faster than the reported same type of molecular dynamics observed in the 2D MHPs (nBA)2PbBr4, (ODA)PbBr4 and (GABA)2PbBr4, for which C3 rotational diffusion of the –NH3 groups was found to occur on a timescale of 30–230 ps at 275–300 K.11 The slower timescale dynamics compared to our study may be attributed to differences in the observation time window limited by the E range because different instruments were used.
Finally, we compare our dynamical results to the PL properties of the materials. In this context, (1,3-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 exhibit broadband PL (ca. 500–900 nm), whereas (1,4-XDA)PbBr4 exhibits narrowband PL at 420 nm together with weaker, broadband PL between 500 and 800 nm.10 The broadband PL of (1,3-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 has been assigned to radiative relaxation of self-trapped excitons (STEs) due to their more distorted inorganic sublattice and shows a general, systematic decrease in intensity with increasing temperature.10,28 The broad nature of STE emission in MHPs may also be associated with low-energy, anharmonic phonons due to their generally soft lattices.20 In this regard, we notice that the phonon peaks for (1,3-PDA)PbBr4 and (1,4-PDA)PbBr4 are broader and have a lower energy compared to (1,4-XDA)PbBr4, for which the phonon peaks are more distinct and exhibit less contribution close to the elastic line (see Fig. 3). The difference in these phonon properties, as well as structural disorder, may thus correlate with the broadness of the PL of the studied materials.
The systematic decrease in the PL intensity with increasing temperature is generally believed to originate from enhanced electron–phonon processes, which depopulate the light-emitting levels in a non-radiative way.10 However, the softness of the perovskite lattice of MHPs implies that the lattice dynamically reacts to the organic cation dynamics and vice versa, and, therefore, the phonons of the inorganic sublattice and the organic cation dynamics are intricately coupled. We speculate that the increase in the portion of mobile –NH3 species, as indicated by the decreasing immobile fraction (cf. Table 1) and the concomitant increase in local structural fluctuations (dynamic disorder) induced by transient hydrogen-bonding interactions between the –NH3 groups and the inorganic sublattice, promotes thermal quenching of luminescence. Indeed, previous studies of the 3D MHPs ABX3 (A = Cs, FA, or MA; B = Sn or Pb; X = I, Br, or Cl)29–31 and the 2D MHP (C4H9NH3)2PbBr432 have shown that dynamic disorder may lead to an increased tendency for non-radiative relaxation through luminescence killer centers. For (1,4-XDA)PbBr4, complexities arising from reabsorption and weak photostability hinder a reliable quantitative analysis of the PL–dynamics relationship.10 Nevertheless, its comparatively suppressed thermal quenching of luminescence between 77 and 297 K may be related to the relatively slower rotational diffusion of the –NH3 groups in this material compared to the other materials. Therefore, our results may indicate that slower dynamics yields less dynamic disorder and higher thermal stability of PL.
Supplementary information (SI): energy integrated neutron scattering data, additional S(Q, E) data and fits, and additional EISF models and fits. See DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d5cp04945h.
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