Constructing Stable and Potentially High-Performance Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Perovskites with “Unstable” Cations

• Main Authors: Qing Yang, Menghao Wu, Xiao Cheng Zeng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2020-01-01
• Series: Research
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.34133/2020/1986576

A new family of functional hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites (HOIPs) is theoretically designed based on the following chemical insights: when a proton is adhered to molecules like water or ethanol, the newly formed larger-sized cations (e.g., H5O2+, C2H5OH2+, and CH3SH+) entail low electron affinities mimicking superalkalis; they are conjugated acids of weak bases that cannot survive in solution, while their chemistry behavior in the HOIP frameworks, however, may be markedly different due to greatly enhanced cohesive energies of the proton, which facilitate the formation of new HOIPs. First-principles computations show that the putative formation reactions for these newly designed HOIPs typically release much more energy compared with the prevailing HOIP MAPbI3, suggesting the likelihood of facile solution-based fabrications, while the suppression of reverse formation suggests that the humidity stability may be markedly enhanced. During their formations, halide acids are unlikely to react with ethanol or methanethiol without the presence of metal halides, a condition further favoring their stability. The proposed structure of (H5O2)PbI3 may also clarify the origin of the long-speculated existence of HPbI3. Importantly, density functional theory computations suggest that many of these HOIPs possess not only direct bandgaps with values within the optimal range for solar light absorbing but also more desirable optical absorption spectra than that of MAPbI3, where their ferroelectric polarizations also benefit photovoltaics. The stability and photovoltaic efficiency may be even further improved for the newly designed two-dimensional (2D) HOIPs and 2D/3D hybrid HOIP structures.