Issue 4, 2018

Surface engineering for improved stability of CH3NH3PbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals

Abstract

Organohalide perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) with a variety of nano-scale structures and morphologies have shown promising potential owing to their size- and composition-dependent optoelectronic properties. Despite extensive studies on their size-dependent optical properties, a lack of understanding on their morphological transformation and the relevant stability issues limits a wide range of applications. Herein, we hypothesize a mechanism for the morphological transformation of perovskite NCs, which leads to dissolving NCs and forming microscale rectangular grains, resulting in a reduction of photoluminescence. We found that the morphological transformation from nanocrystal solids to microscale rectangular solids occurs via Ostwald ripening. A surface treatment with a surfactant suppresses the transformation, resulting in nearly monodisperse NCs with a square shape (∼20 nm edge size), and thus improves the stability of NC solution, as well as their photoluminescence performance and quantum yield (PLQY = 82%). Furthermore, we employed similar amine derivatives to investigate the effect of a molecular architecture (i.e. steric hindrance) on perovskite NC stability, which exhibited much enhanced PLQY (93%). These experimental results provide new insights into the fundamental relationship between the physical properties and the structure of perovskite nanocrystals required to understand their diverse optoelectronic properties.

Graphical abstract: Surface engineering for improved stability of CH3NH3PbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Sep 2017
Accepted
14 Dec 2017
First published
14 Dec 2017

Nanoscale, 2018,10, 1885-1891

Surface engineering for improved stability of CH3NH3PbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals

A. Kirakosyan, S. Yun, S. Yoon and J. Choi, Nanoscale, 2018, 10, 1885 DOI: 10.1039/C7NR06547G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements