Perovskite-Inspired Photovoltaic Materials: Toward Best Practices in Materials Characterization and Calculations
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Recently, there has been an explosive growth in research based on hybrid lead–halide perovskites for photovoltaics owing to rapid improvements in efficiency. The advent of these materials for solar applications has led to widespread interest in understanding the key enabling properties of these materials. This has resulted in renewed interest in related compounds and a search for materials that may replicate the defect-tolerant properties and long lifetimes of the hybrid lead-halide perovskites. Given the rapid pace of development of the field, the rises in efficiencies of these systems have outpaced the more basic understanding of these materials. Measuring or calculating the basic properties, such as crystal/electronic structure and composition, can be challenging because some of these materials have anisotropic structures, and/or are composed of both heavy metal cations and volatile, mobile, light elements. Some consequences are beam damage during characterization, composition change under vacuum, or compound effects, such as the alteration of the electronic structure through the influence of the substrate. These effects make it challenging to understand the basic properties integral to optoelectronic operation. Compounding these difficulties is the rapid pace with which the field progresses. This has created an ongoing need to continually evaluate best practices with respect to characterization and calculations, as well as to identify inconsistencies in reported values to determine if those inconsistencies are rooted in characterization methodology or materials synthesis. This article describes the difficulties in characterizing hybrid lead–halide perovskites and new materials and how these challenges may be overcome. The topic was discussed at a seminar at the 2015 Materials Research Society Fall Meeting & Exhibit. This article highlights the lessons learned from the seminar and the insights of some of the attendees, with reference to both recent literature and controlled experiments to illustrate the challenges discussed. The focus in this article is on crystallography, composition measurements, photoemission spectroscopy, and calculations on perovskites and new, related absorbers. We suggest how the reporting of the important artifacts could be streamlined between groups to ensure reproducibility as the field progresses.
Date Issued
2017-01-30
Online Publication Date
2018-01-30T07:00:13Z
Date Acceptance
2017-01-24
ISSN
0897-4756
Publisher
American Chemical Society
Start Page
1964
End Page
1988
Journal / Book Title
CHEMISTRY OF MATERIALS
Volume
29
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© 2017 American Chemical Society. This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Chemistry of Materials after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see: https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.6b03852
Source Database
web-of-science
Sponsor
The Royal Society
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000396639400007&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Grant Number
UF150657
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Technology
Chemistry, Physical
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Chemistry
Materials Science
METHYLAMMONIUM LEAD IODIDE
METAL HALIDE PEROVSKITES
SOLAR-CELL APPLICATIONS
DEFECT-TOLERANT SEMICONDUCTORS
RAY PHOTOELECTRON-SPECTROSCOPY
SCHOTTKY-BARRIER FORMATION
CHARGE-CARRIER DYNAMICS
AUGMENTED-WAVE METHOD
OPTICAL-PROPERTIES
ELECTRONIC-STRUCTURE
Materials
03 Chemical Sciences
09 Engineering
Publication Status
Published