Surface Engineering of Methylammonium Lead Bromide Perovskite Crystals for Enhanced X-ray Detection

Abraha Tadese Gidey; Yuki Haruta; Artur P Herman; Miłosz Grodzicki; Anna M Melnychenko; Dominika Majchrzak; Somnath Mahato; Ernest Rogowicz; Marcin Syperek; Robert Kudrawiec; Makhsud I Saidaminov; Ahmed L Abdelhady

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c02061

Surface Engineering of Methylammonium Lead Bromide Perovskite Crystals for Enhanced X-ray Detection

J Phys Chem Lett. 2023 Oct 12;14(40):9136-9144. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c02061. Epub 2023 Oct 5.

Authors

Abraha Tadese Gidey¹, Yuki Haruta², Artur P Herman³, Miłosz Grodzicki^{1

3}, Anna M Melnychenko^{1

3}, Dominika Majchrzak¹, Somnath Mahato¹, Ernest Rogowicz⁴, Marcin Syperek⁴, Robert Kudrawiec^{1

3}, Makhsud I Saidaminov^{2

5

6}, Ahmed L Abdelhady^{1

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ ŁUKASIEWICZ Research Network PORT-Polish Center for Technology Development, 54-066 Wrocław, Poland.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, British Columbia V8P 5C2, Canada.
³ Department of Semiconductor Materials Engineering, Faculty of Fundamental Problems of Technology, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Wybrzeże Wyspiańskiego 27, 50-370 Wrocław, Poland.
⁴ Department of Experimental Physics, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Wybrzeże Wyspiańskiego 27, 50-370 Wrocław, Poland.
⁵ Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, British Columbia V8P 5C2, Canada.
⁶ Centre for Advanced Materials and Related Technologies (CAMTEC), University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, British Columbia V8P 5C2, Canada.
⁷ Department of Chemistry, Khalifa University, P.O. Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
⁸ Advanced Materials Chemistry Center (AMCC), Khalifa University, P.O. Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Abstract

The surface quality of lead halide perovskite crystals can extremely influence their optoelectronic properties and device performance. Here, we report a surface engineering crystallization technique in which we in situ grow a polycrystalline methylammonium lead tribromide (MAPbBr₃) film on top of bulk mm-sized single crystals. Such MAPbBr₃ crystals with a MAPbBr₃ passivating film display intense green emission under UV light. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy demonstrates that these crystals with emissive surfaces are compositionally different from typical MAPbBr₃ crystals that show no emission under UV light. Time-resolved photoluminescence and electrical measurements indicate that the MAPbBr₃ film/MAPbBr₃ crystals possess less surface defects compared to the bare MAPbBr₃ crystals. Therefore, X-ray detectors fabricated using the surface-engineered MAPbBr₃ crystals provide an almost 5 times improved sensitivity to X-rays and a more stable baseline drift with respect to the typical MAPbBr₃ crystals.