Controllable deposition of organic metal halide perovskite films with wafer-scale uniformity by single source flash evaporation

Sci Rep. 2020 Nov 2;10(1):18781. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-75764-5.

Abstract

Conventional solution-processing techniques such as the spin-coating method have been used successfully to reveal excellent properties of organic-inorganic halide perovskites (OHPs) for optoelectronic devices such as solar cell and light-emitting diode, but it is essential to explore other deposition techniques compatible with large-scale production. Single-source flash evaporation technique, in which a single source of materials of interest is rapidly heated to be deposited in a few seconds, is one of the candidate techniques for large-scale thin film deposition of OHPs. In this work, we investigated the reliability and controllability of the single-source flash evaporation technique for methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) perovskite. In-depth statistical analysis was employed to demonstrate that the MAPbI3 films prepared via the flash evaporation have an ultrasmooth surface and uniform thickness throughout the 4-inch wafer scale. We also show that the thickness and grain size of the MAPbI3 film can be controlled by adjusting the amount of the source and number of deposition steps. Finally, the excellent large-area uniformity of the physical properties of the deposited thin films can be transferred to the uniformity in the device performance of MAPbI3 photodetectors prepared by flash evaporation which exhibited the responsivity of 0.2 A/W and detectivity of 3.82 × 1011 Jones.