Interplay of Cation Ordering and Ferroelectricity in Perovskite Tin Iodides: Designing a Polar Halide Perovskite for Photovoltaic Applications

Emerging Halide Perovskite Ferroelectrics

Halide perovskites have gained tremendous attention in the past decade owing to their excellent properties in optoelectronics. Recently, a fascinating property, ferroelectricity, has been discovered in halide perovskites and quickly attracted widespread interest. Compared with traditional perovskite oxide ferroelectrics, halide perovskites display natural advantages such as structural softness, low weight, and easy processing, which are highly desirable in applications pursuing miniaturization and flexibility. This review focuses on the current research progress in halide perovskite ferroelectrics, encompassing the emerging materials systems and their potential applications in ferroelectric photovoltaics, self-powered photodetection, and X-ray detection. The main challenges and possible solutions in the future development of halide perovskite ferroelectric materials are also attempted to be pointed out.

Prospects of Metal-Free Perovskites for Piezoelectric Applications

Metal-halide perovskites have emerged as versatile materials for various electronic and optoelectronic devices such as diodes, solar cells, photodetectors, and sensors due to their interesting properties of high absorption coefficient in the visible regime, tunable bandgap, and high power conversion efficiency. Recently, metal-free organic perovskites have also emerged as a particular class of perovskites materials for piezoelectric applications. This broadens the chemical variety of perovskite structures with good mechanical adaptability, light-weight, and low-cost processability. Despite these achievements, the fundamental understanding of the underlying phenomenon of piezoelectricity in metal-free perovskites is still lacking. Therefore, this perspective emphasizes the overview of piezoelectric properties of metal-halide, metal-free perovskites, and their recent progress which may encourage material designs to enhance their applicability towards practical applications. Finally, challenges and outlooks of piezoelectric metal-free perovskites are highlighted for their future developments.

Design of High-Performance Lead-Free Quaternary Antiperovskites for Photovoltaics via Ion Type Inversion and Anion Ordering

The emergence of halide double perovskites significantly increases the compositional space for lead-free and air-stable photovoltaic absorbers compared to halide perovskites. Nevertheless, most halide double perovskites exhibit oversized band gaps (>1.9 eV) or dipole-forbidden optical transition, which are unfavorable for efficient single-junction solar cell applications. The current device performance of halide double perovskite is still inferior to that of lead-based halide perovskites, such as CH₃NH₃PbI₃ (MAPbI₃). Here, by ion type inversion and anion ordering on perovskite lattice sites, two new classes of pnictogen-based quaternary antiperovskites with the formula of X₆B₂AA' and X₆BB'A₂ are designed. Phase stability and tunable band gaps in these quaternary antiperovskites are demonstrated based on first-principles calculations. Further photovoltaic-functionality-directed screening of these materials leads to the discovery of 5 stable compounds (Ca₆N₂AsSb, Ca₆N₂PSb, Sr₆N₂AsSb, Sr₆N₂PSb, and Ca₆NPSb₂) with suitable direct band gaps, small carrier effective masses and low exciton binding energies, and dipole-allowed strong optical absorption, which are favorable properties for a photovoltaic absorber material. The calculated theoretical maximum solar cell efficiencies based on these five compounds are all larger than 29%, comparable to or even higher than that of the MAPbI₃ based solar cell. Our work reveals the huge potential of quaternary antiperovskites in the optoelectronic field and provides a new strategy to design lead-free and air-stable perovskite-based photovoltaic absorber materials.

Improving the Catalytic CO2 Reduction on Cs2AgBiBr6 by Halide Defect Engineering: A DFT Study

Pb-free double halide perovskites have drawn immense attention in the potential photocatalytic application, due to the regulatable bandgap energy and nontoxicity. Herein, we first present a study for CO2 conversion on Pb-free halide perovskite Cs2AgBiBr6 under state-of-the-art first-principles calculation with dispersion correction. Compared with the previous CsPbBr3, the cell parameter of Cs2AgBiBr6 underwent only a small decrease of 3.69%. By investigating the adsorption of CO, CO2, NO, NO2, and catalytic reduction of CO2, we found Cs2AgBiBr6 exhibits modest adsorption ability and unsatisfied potential determining step energy of 2.68 eV in catalysis. We adopted defect engineering (Cl doping, I doping and Br-vacancy) to regulate the adsorption and CO2 reduction behavior. It is found that CO2 molecule can be chemically and preferably adsorbed on Br-vacancy doped Cs2AgBiBr6 with a negative adsorption energy of -1.16 eV. Studying the CO2 reduction paths on pure and defect modified Cs2AgBiBr6, Br-vacancy is proved to play a critical role in decreasing the potential determining step energy to 1.25 eV. Finally, we probe into the electronic properties and demonstrate Br-vacancy will not obviously promote the process of catalysis deactivation, as there is no formation of deep-level electronic states acting as carrier recombination center. Our findings reveal the process of gas adsorption and CO2 reduction on novel Pb-free Cs2AgBiBr6, and propose a potential strategy to improve the efficiency of catalytic CO2 conversion towards practical implementation.

Will organic-inorganic hybrid halide lead perovskites be eliminated from optoelectronic applications?

In the development of perovskite solar cells, a new version of Don Quixote is needed if scientists are to keep on seeking the most celebrated works of literature, according to the evaluation criterion of 'THE FIRST' and 'THE BEST'. Perovskite solar cells have developed rapidly in recent years due to several factors, including their high light absorption capability, long carrier lifetime, high defect tolerance, and adjustable band gap. Since they were first reported in 2009, solar cells based on organic-inorganic hybrid halide lead perovskites have achieved a power conversion efficiency of over 23%. However, although there are broad development prospects for perovskite solar cells, their lead toxicity and instability resulting from the use of organic-inorganic hybrid halide lead perovskites such as CH₃NH₃PbI₃ limit their application, which is further deteriorating progressively. Therefore, the development of environmentally friendly, stable and efficient perovskite materials for future optoelectronic applications has long-term practical significance, which can eventually be commercialized. In this case, the discovery and development of inorganic lead-free perovskite light absorbing materials have become an active research topic in the field of photovoltaics. In this review, we discuss the application of organic-inorganic hybrid halide lead perovskites. This application is further analyzed and summarized using the research progress on inorganic lead-free perovskite solar cells by restoring some relevant prospects for the development of inorganic lead-free perovskite solar cells.

Advancement on Lead-Free Organic-Inorganic Halide Perovskite Solar Cells: A Review

Remarkable attention has been committed to the recently discovered cost effective and solution processable lead-free organic-inorganic halide perovskite solar cells. Recent studies have reported that, within five years, the reported efficiency has reached 9.0%, which makes them an extremely promising and fast developing candidate to compete with conventional lead-based perovskite solar cells. The major challenge associated with the conventional perovskite solar cells is the toxic nature of lead (Pb) used in the active layer of perovskite material. If lead continues to be used in fabricating solar cells, negative health impacts will result in the environment due to the toxicity of lead. Alternatively, lead free perovskite solar cells could give a safe way by substituting low-cost, abundant and non toxic material. This review focuses on formability of lead-free organic-inorganic halide perovskite, alternative metal cations candidates to replace lead (Pb), and possible substitutions of organic cations, as well as halide anions in the lead-free organic-inorganic halide perovskite architecture. Furthermore, the review gives highlights on the impact of organic cations, metal cations and inorganic anions on stability and the overall performance of lead free perovskite solar cells.

Influence of Rb/Cs Cation-Exchange on Inorganic Sn Halide Perovskites: From Chemical Structure to Physical Properties

CsSnI₃ is a potential lead-free inorganic perovskite for solar energy applications due to its nontoxicity and attractive optoelectronic properties. Despite these advantages, photovoltaic cells using CsSnI₃ have not been successful to date, in part due to low stability. We demonstrate how gradual substitution of Rb for Cs influences the structural, thermodynamic, and electronic properties on the basis of first-principles density functional theory calculations. By examining the effect of the Rb:Cs ratio, we reveal a correlation between octahedral distortion and band gap, including spin-orbit coupling. We further highlight the cation-induced variation of the ionization potential (work function) and the importance of surface termination for tin-based halide perovskites for engineering high-performance solar cells.

First-principles study on the electric structure and ferroelectricity in epitaxial CsSnI3 films

Epitaxial strain can induce ferroelectricity and enhance the polarization in the inorganic hybrid perovskite material CsSnI₃ for energy applications.