Structural changes and band gap tunability with incorporation of n-butylammonium iodide in perovskite thin film

Leong Wei Xian Rebecca; Zainal Arif Burhanudin; Mundzir Abdullah; Mohamed Shuaib Mohamed Saheed

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03364

Structural changes and band gap tunability with incorporation of n-butylammonium iodide in perovskite thin film

Heliyon. 2020 Feb 7;6(2):e03364. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03364. eCollection 2020 Feb.

Authors

Leong Wei Xian Rebecca¹, Zainal Arif Burhanudin^{2

3}, Mundzir Abdullah⁴, Mohamed Shuaib Mohamed Saheed^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Fundamental & Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia.
² Centre of Innovative Nanostructures & Nanodevices (COINN), Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia.
³ Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia.
⁴ Institute of Nano Optoelectronics Research and Technology (INOR), Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, USM, Penang, Malaysia.

Abstract

The current work presents structural change and band gap tunability using hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite with the incorporation of long chain ammonium halide. Thin films of MAPbI₃ with different ratio of n-butylammonium iodide (BAI) have been successfully deposited on the substrate using a single step coating technique. X-ray diffraction scans revealed the transition of the 3D structure of MAPbI₃ to quasi-2D perovskite structure when BAI loading increase with a crystallite size range approximately 16 nm. This structural changeis reflected in the band gap as it increased from 1.59 eV for bulk crystal MAPbI₃ to 2.13 eV for BAI and MAPbI₃ ratio of 1:1. Correspondingly, photoluminescence measurement showed a blue shift in perovskite emission due to the transition of 3D to 2D layered structure perovskite. Raman spectra confirm that all fabricated films are of pristine quality and no corresponding degradation peaks of PbI₂ is observed. These characteristics are important to address the single step deposition method of hybrid perovskite for perovskite solar cells application.

Keywords: Bandgap tunability; Materials science; Organic-inorganic perovskite; Structural changes; Thin films.