Harnessing of Spatially Confined Perovskite Nanocrystals Using Polysaccharide-based Block Copolymer Systems

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 Jul 6;14(26):30279-30289. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c09296. Epub 2022 Jun 23.

Abstract

Metal halide perovskite nanocrystals (PVSK NCs) are generally unstable upon their transfer from colloidal dispersions to thin film devices. This has been a major obstacle limiting their widespread application. In this study, we proposed a new approach to maintain their exceptional optoelectronic properties during this transfer by dispersing brightly emitting cesium lead halide PVSK NCs in polysaccharide-based maltoheptaose-block-polyisoprene-block-maltoheptaose (MH-b-PI-b-MH) triblock copolymer (BCP) matrices. Instantaneous crystallization of ion precursors with favorable coordination to the sugar (maltoheptaose) domains produced ordered NCs with varied nanostructures of controlled domain size (≈10-20 nm). Confining highly ordered and low dimension PVSK NCs in polysaccharide-based BCPs constituted a powerful tool to control the self-assembly of BCPs and PVSK NCs into predictable structures. Consequently, the hybrid thin films exhibited excellent durability to humidity and stretchability with a relatively high PL intensity and photoluminescence quantum yield (>70%). Furthermore, stretchable phototransistor memory devices were produced and maintained with a good memory ratio of 105 and exhibited a long-term memory retention over 104 s at a high strain of 100%.

Keywords: perovskite; photonic memory; polysaccharide block copolymers; self-assembly; stretchable.