When defects become 'dynamic': Halide perovskites: A new window on materials?

Yevgeny Rakita, Igor Lubomirsky, David Cahen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

59 Scopus citations

Abstract

Although Pb Halide perovskites (HaPs) can be prepared as organic electronic materials, they resemble top-quality inorganic semiconductors, especially with respect to their low defect densities, as derived from optical and electronic transport studies. Among causes for such low defect densities were 'defect-tolerance' (proposed) and 'self-healing' (experimentally identified). We show that HaPs are likely an example of a class of materials that cannot support static bulk defect densities significantly above thermodynamically-dictated densities. The reasons are (a) the free energy to form HaPs (from binary halides) is less than the formation energies of (static) defects in them and (b) the small kinetic stabilization of such defects. We summarize the evidence for such a situation and conclude that higher defect densities in polycrystalline films likely result from the (expected) smaller defect formation energy at surfaces and grain boundaries than in the bulk. This situation directly limits the options for doping such materials, and leads to the counter-intuitive conclusion that a low free energy of formation (from the binaries) can lead to self-healing and, consequently, to low densities of static defects, to be distinguished from dynamic ones. The latter can be benign in terms of (opto)electronic performance, because of their relatively short lifetimes. We propose that the conditions that we formulated can serve as search criteria for other low defect density materials, which can be of interest and beneficial, also for applications beyond optoelectronics.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1297-1305
Number of pages9
JournalMaterials Horizons
Volume6
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Aug 2019
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Process Chemistry and Technology
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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