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Multislip-enabled morphing of all-inorganic perovskites

Nature Materials volume 22, pages 1175–1181 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

All-inorganic lead halide perovskites (CsPbX3, X = Cl, Br or I) are becoming increasingly important for energy conversion and optoelectronics because of their outstanding performance and enhanced environmental stability. Morphing perovskites into specific shapes and geometries without damaging their intrinsic functional properties is attractive for designing devices and manufacturing. However, inorganic semiconductors are often intrinsically brittle at room temperature, except for some recently reported layered or van der Waals semiconductors. Here, by in situ compression, we demonstrate that single-crystal CsPbX3 micropillars can be substantially morphed into distinct shapes (cubic, L and Z shapes, rectangular arches and so on) without localized cleavage or cracks. Such exceptional plasticity is enabled by successive slips of partial dislocations on multiple \(\{110\}\langle 1\bar{1}0 \rangle\) systems, as evidenced by atomic-resolution transmission electron microscopy and first-principles and atomistic simulations. The optoelectronic performance and bandgap of the devices were unchanged. Thus, our results suggest that CsPbX3 perovskites, as potential deformable inorganic semiconductors, may have profound implications for the manufacture of advanced optoelectronics and energy systems.

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Fig. 1: Material characterization, in situ experiment and morphing of CsPbX3 single crystals into various geometries.
Fig. 2: Morphing a CsPbBr3 single crystal through successive multislips.
Fig. 3: Deformation mechanism and the origin of the exceptional plasticity of CsPbX3 perovskites.
Fig. 4: Application of the morphed CsPbX3 crystals to construct patterned photodetector devices and optoelectronic performance characterization.

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The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Hong Kong Research Grant Council (RGC) under Grant Nos. RFS2021-1S05 (Y.L.), 11200421 (S.Z.) and CityU11306520 (J.C.H.), the City University of Hong Kong under Grant No. 9610461 (Y.L.) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China/RGC Joint Research Scheme under Grant No. N_HKU159/22 (Y.L.).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xiaocui Li, You Meng, Wanpeng Li.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, China

    Xiaocui Li, Jun Zhang, Heyi Wang, Rong Fan, Shijun Zhao & Yang Lu

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, China

    Xiaocui Li, You Meng, Wanpeng Li, Shih-Wei Hung, Fu-Rong Chen & Johnny C. Ho

  3. Time-resolved Aberration Corrected Environmental Electron Microscope Unit, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, China

    Xiaocui Li, Wanpeng Li, Shih-Wei Hung & Fu-Rong Chen

  4. Center for X-mechanics, ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Chaoqun Dang

  5. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Yang Lu

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Contributions

Y.L. and X.L. conceived the research. Y.L., S.Z., F.-R.C. and J.C.H. supervised the research. X.L. performed the experiments. Y.M. synthesized the samples and investigated the optoelectronic devices. W.L. fabricated the FIB samples and performed part of the analyses. S.Z. and J.Z. performed the simulations and calculations. C.D., H.W., S.-W.H. and R.F. performed part of the analysis. X.L., Y.M., W.L., F.-R.C., S.Z., J.C.H. and Y.L. analysed the data and wrote the initial manuscript. All authors contributed to the final manuscript and approved the submission.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Fu-Rong Chen, Shijun Zhao, Johnny C. Ho or Yang Lu.

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Nature Materials thanks Karsten Durst and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Notes 1–9, Figs. 1–15, Tables 1–2, Video captions 1 and 2 and refs. 1–11.

Supplementary Video 1

Morphing multiple CsPbX3 (X = Cl, Br or I) single-crystal pillars into various distinct geometries. Played at 40× speed (Fig. 1f–i) and 10× speed (Fig. 1j,k).

Supplementary Video 2

The multislip-enabled morphing of a CsPbBr3 single-crystal pillar (Fig. 2a–h), played at 20× speed.

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Li, X., Meng, Y., Li, W. et al. Multislip-enabled morphing of all-inorganic perovskites. Nat. Mater. 22, 1175–1181 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-023-01631-z

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