Proceedings of Online International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (OnlineHOPV20)
Publication date: 22nd May 2020
Nontoxic alternatives to lead halide perovskites are highly sought after for applications in optoelectronics. Blue-luminescent materials are especially demanded as they could be used to prepare white light-emitting diodes, with important potential applications in lighting systems. However, wide-bandgap blue emitters with high photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) are typically more difficult to obtain as compared to green- or red-emitting ones. Here, we prepared a series of inorganic cesium copper halides, with the general formula Cs3Cu2X5 (X = Cl, Br, I, and mixtures thereof) by dry mechanochemical synthesis at room temperature. X-ray diffraction demonstrates quantitative conversion of binary precursors into the desired ternary structures and good halide mixing in single-phase compounds. We identified Cs3Cu2I5 as the most promising material as it maintains blue luminescence centered at 442 nm with a high PLQY (>40%) after several days in air (Cs3Cu2Cl5 shows significantly higher PLQY, over 80% but is unstable in air). Based on this, we fabricated homogeneous and pinhole-free Cs3Cu2I5 thin films by thermal single-source vacuum deposition. Crystalline phase and photoluminescence features are maintained in the thin films, demonstrating that these low-toxicity materials can be synthesized and processed by fully solvent-free routes for a widespread implementation in optoelectronic devices.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement PerovSAMs No. 747599, from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. [834431]), the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (ex-MINECO) via the Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu MDM-2015-0538, MAT2017- 88821-R, and PCIN-2015-255, and the Generalitat Valenciana (Prometeo/2016/135). P.S thanks the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport for her FPU pre-doctoral grant. M.S. thanks the Spanish Ministry of Science Innovation and Universities (ex-MINECO) for his postdoctoral RyC contract. We acknowledge the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research & innovation program under grant agreement No. 763977 of the PerTPV project.