DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.emlem.2022.050
Publication date: 15th July 2022
Tin based halide perovskites have drawn attention in the last years because of their unique combination of interesting physical properties and low toxicity, showing a great potential for solar cells, photodetectors, sensors, lasers, and light emitting diodes applications [1,7]. However, the development of electronic devices has been hindered, in part, for the poor stability of Sn (II) against atmospheric conditions (moisture and oxygen) [2]. Currently, 2D- hybrid perovskite materials were proposed to overcome these issues owing to the hydrophobic nature of large organic cations, isolating tin halide octahedrons from the moisture [3]. Among the organic cations that have been tested for 2D perovskite structures, 2- thiophene ethyl ammonium tin (II) iodide (TEA2SnI4) perovskite has shown high exciton energy binding, and low exciton- phonon interactions [4]. Although there are some published papers about TEA2SnI4 thin films [5] and nanoplates[6,8], the development of nano- and microcrystals have been limited due to fast crystallization rate of tin-based perovskites and stability issues [7]. Moreover, in the literature there are few optical and structural information about TEA2SnBr4 and TEA2SnCl4. In this work we report by first time the synthesis of TEA2SnX4 (X= Cl, Br, I) microcrystals by mean of hot injection method. We observed that the optical and structural properties of TEA2SnX4 (X= Cl, Br, I) microcrystals are dependent of the molar ratio of 2-thiophene ethyl amine and SnX2-Trioctyl phosphine (TOP) precursor solutions. In all of cases we observe a X ray diffraction pattern characterized for strong (00l; l= 2,4,6 and 8) reflections which is consistent with the quantum well like structure of 2D hybrid tin halide perovskites. However, for the synthesis of TEA2SnBr4 microcrystals, d- spacing decrease from 1.8658 nm to 1.5782 nm when the rTEA/Sn molar ratio of TEA/Sn(II) precursors decrease from 2 to 0.25. We hypothesized that at high rTEA/Sn, TEA molecules might dimerize by oxidative polymerization reaction, obtaining a long chain diammonium cation between [SnBr6]4- sheets. Evidence from 13 C nuclear magnetic resonance experiments might confirm this mechanism. TEA2SnCl4 and TEA2SnBr4 show a photoluminescence spectrum characterized by a broad band emission centred at 595 nm and 608 nm respectively. Owing to the Stoke shift between PL excitation and emission spectra of TEA2SnCl4 and TEA2SnBr4 are 318 nm and 335 nm, PL emission of this materials might be related to self- confined excitons. In the case of TEA2SnI4 microcrystals, PL emission and excitation spectra is equal to previous works [6,8], represented by a sharp band emission centred at 641 nm with a FWHM = 40 nm, and a low PLQY = 1%. We measured a high PLQY= 50% for TEA2SnBr4 microcrystals and PLQY= 20% for TEA2SnCl4 microcrystals synthesized at a high molar ratio of TEA/Sn (II) of 2. By first time, we have also demonstrated photoconductivity effect for TEA2SnI4 films containing microcrystals synthesized with a molar ratio TEA/Sn(II)= 0.5.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 862656 (project DROP-IT), by the Spanish MICINN through project no. PID2020-120484RB. We acknowledge the support of the Spanish MINECO through the project Nirvana (no. PID2020-119628RB-C31) by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and CIDEGENT contract.