Competing Dissolution Pathways and Ligand Passivation-Enhanced Interfacial Stability of Hybrid Perovskites with Liquid Water

Many-Body MYP2 Force-Field: Toward the Crystal Growth Modeling of Hybrid Perovskites

Hybrid perovskites are well-known for their optoelectronic and photovoltaic properties. Molecular dynamics simulations allow the study of these soft and ionic crystals by including dynamical effects (e.g., molecular rotations, octahedra tilting, ionic diffusion and hysteresis), yet the high computational cost restricts the use of accurate ab initio forces for bulk or small atomic systems. Hence, great interest exists in the development of classical force-fields for hybrid perovskites of low and linear scaling computational cost, via both empirical methods and machine-learning. This work aims at extending the transferability of our MYP0 model, which has been successfully tailored to methylammonium lead iodide (MAPI) and applied to the study of molecular rotations, vibrations, diffusion of defects, and many other properties. The extended model, named MYP2, improves the description of inorganic or hybrid fragments and the processes of crystal formation while preserving a good description of bulk properties. More importantly, it allows for the direct simulation of the crystal growth of cubic MAPI from deposition of PbI and MAI precursors on the surfaces. Our findings pave the way toward classical force-fields able to model the microstructure evolution of hybrid perovskites and the crystalline synthesis from deposition in vacuo.

Kinetic Mechanism of Surfactant-Based Molecular Recognition: Selective Permeability across an Oil-Water Interface Regulated by Supramolecular Aggregates

Lipids are known to play a vital role in the molecular organization of all cellular life. Molecular recognition is another fundamental biological process that is generally attributed to biological polymers, such as proteins and nucleic acids. However, there is evidence that aggregates of lipids and lipid-like molecules are also capable of selectively binding to or regulating the partitioning of other molecules. We previously demonstrated that a model two-phase octanol/water system can selectively partition Red 40 and Blue 1 dyes added to an aqueous phase, with the selectivity depending on the surfactant (e.g., cetyltrimethylammonium bromide) dissolved in the organic phase. Here, we elucidate the mechanism of molecular recognition in this system by using quantitative partitioning experiments and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Our results indicate that the selectivity for the red dye is thermodynamically favored at all surfactant concentrations, while selectivity for the blue dye is kinetically favored at high surfactant concentrations. The kinetic selectivity for the blue dye correlates with the presence of molecular aggregation at the oil-water interface. Coarse-grained MD simulations elucidate nanoscale supramolecular structures that can preferentially bind one small molecule rather than another at an interface, providing a selectively permeable barrier in the absence of proteins. The results suggest a new supramolecular mechanism for molecular recognition with potential applications in drug delivery, drug discovery, and biosensing.

The influence of compression on the lattice stability of α-FAPbI3 revealed by numerical simulation

The ambient stability of α-FAPbI3 perovskite remains one of the biggest barriers to the commercialization, despite many attempts to enhance its lifetime. Due to the difficulties in experimenting the transition...

Does Expanding or Contracting MgO Lattice Really Help with Corrosion Resistance of Mg Surface: Insights from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

In a humid environment, water droplets on the solid surface can act as a medium to accelerate corrosion. If the solid material has hydrophobic properties, the surface of the material will remain "clean" and corrosion may be retarded to a certain extent. In theory, MgO itself is a hydrophilic material, and we can apply additional stress or strain to change its lattice constant and adjust the wetting behavior of water on the MgO surface, resulting in changes of corrosion resistance. In order to study the effects of MgO lattice expansion or contraction on the wetting behavior of nano-water, molecular dynamics simulations have been performed in this work. It is found that the changes of the lattice constants on the MgO surface can significantly change the wetting tendency. It will alter the interaction forces between water molecules and MgO surfaces, which in turn changes the atomic density profiles, the orientation of OH bonds, and hydrogen bond networks. The contraction of MgO can actually result in the increase of wetting angles of nano-water droplets on the MgO surface and gradually exhibits hydrophobic properties.

Hysteresis and Instability Predicted in Moisture Degradation of Perovskite Solar Cells

The degradation of the perovskite solar cell structure was expected recently to be reversible, which opened a new gate to the enhancement of the device lifetime by reversing the process. However, the kinetic details of the structural collapse and recovery are still missing, without which the perovskite reversibility cannot be further explored. Due to the experimental difficulty, a purposeful numerical model was conducted in this report, to simulate the water diffusion process in the perovskite structure in both directions. It was found that the moisture diffusion needs to be initiated by a certain level of structural imperfection and is non-Fickian, as assisted by the collapse of the perovskite into the 1D chains. The reversibility was verified by the back diffusion, but accompanied by hysteresis, stagnancy, and even surprising instability, which initiated the water flow under initial equilibrium, due possibly to the imbalance during the reconstruction of the perovskite lattice. These observations offer new insights to form strategies of improvement, for example, via the possible self-healing perovskite devices.