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Organic–inorganic bismuth (III)-based material: A lead-free, air-stable and solution-processable light-absorber beyond organolead perovskites

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Abstract

Methylammonium bismuth (III) iodide single crystals and films have been developed and investigated. We have further presented the first demonstration of using this organic–inorganic bismuth-based material to replace lead/tin-based perovskite materials in solution-processable solar cells. The organic–inorganic bismuth-based material has advantages of non-toxicity, ambient stability, and low-temperature solution-processability, which provides a promising solution to address the toxicity and stability challenges in organolead- and organotin-based perovskite solar cells. We also demonstrated that trivalent metal cation-based organic–inorganic hybrid materials can exhibit photovoltaic effect, which may inspire more research work on developing and applying organic-inorganic hybrid materials beyond divalent metal cations (Pb (II) and Sn (II)) for solar energy applications.

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Correspondence to Lianzhou Wang.

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Lyu, M., Yun, JH., Cai, M. et al. Organic–inorganic bismuth (III)-based material: A lead-free, air-stable and solution-processable light-absorber beyond organolead perovskites. Nano Res. 9, 692–702 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0948-y

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