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Single-crystal microplates of two-dimensional organic–inorganic lead halide layered perovskites for optoelectronics

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Abstract

Organic–inorganic hybrid perovskites attract considerable attention owing to their applications in high-efficiency solar cells and light emission. Compared with three-dimensional perovskites, two-dimensional (2D) layered hybrid perovskites have a higher exciton binding energy and potentially higher light-emission efficiency. The growth of high-quality crystalline 2D perovskites with a well-defined nanoscale morphology is desirable because they can be suitable building blocks for integrated optoelectronics and (nano)photonics. Herein, we report the facile solution growth of single-crystal microplates of 2D perovskites based on a 2-phenylethylammonium (C6H5CH2CH2NH +3 , PEA) cation, (PEA)2PbX4 (X = Br, I), with a well-defined rectangular geometry and nanoscale thickness through a dissolution–recrystallization process. The crystal structures of (PEA)2PbX4 are first confirmed using single-crystal X-ray diffraction. A solution-phase transport-growth process is developed to grow microplates with a typical size of tens of micrometers and thickness of hundreds of nanometers on another clean substrate different from the substrate coated with lead-acetate precursor film. Surface-topography analysis suggests that the formation of the 2D microplates is likely driven by the wedding-cake growth mechanism. Through halide alloying, the photoluminescence emission of (PEA)2Pb(Br,I)4 perovskites with a narrow peak bandwidth is readily tuned from violet (~410 nm) to green (~530 nm).

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering (No. DE-FG02-09ER46664). D. W. M. also acknowledges financial support from the China Scholarship Council and the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China (No. LY13F040002). L. N. D. also thanks the UW-Madison Advanced Opportunity Fellowship (AOF) and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for support.

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Ma, D., Fu, Y., Dang, L. et al. Single-crystal microplates of two-dimensional organic–inorganic lead halide layered perovskites for optoelectronics. Nano Res. 10, 2117–2129 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1401-6

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