Atomic force microscopy investigation of a step generation and bunching on the (100) facet of a CH3NH3PbI3 crystal, grown from -Butyrolactone

作者:Ding, Jianxu*; Zhao, Ying; Sun, Yingshuang; Du, Songjie; Cui, Hongzhi; Jing, Lin; Cheng, Xiaohua; Zuo, Zhiyuan; Zhan, Xiaoyuan
来源:CRYSTAL RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, 2017, 52(4): UNSP 1700021.
DOI:10.1002/crat.201700021

摘要

Single crystal of organolead trihalide perovskite (CH3NH3PbI3) is proved to be one of the most promising semiconductor materials. Growing large size and high quality CH3NH3PbI3 single crystals is urgently demanded by photoelectric device applications. However, the growth mechanism in microscopic scale for CH3NH3PbI3 single crystal is still unrevealed. In this paper, we are focusing on observing surface structures on (100) facet of CH3NH3PbI3 single crystal via atomic force microscopy (AFM), especially surface structure conversion related to growth kinetics. The results reveal that the growth of (100) facet of CH3NH3PbI3 single crystal is dependent on bunching steps and step slope. The elemental steps, with step height about 0.45 nm, corresponded to half of the unit cell, are generated from screw dislocations when the growth rate is about 0.2 mm per hour. Elemental steps can bunch together and form bunching steps with growth rate of 0.5 mm per hour, in which only even numbers elementary steps are involved, suggesting even numbers elementary steps are stable than that of odd numbers. Additionally, in terms of the surface structures and solution stabilities, large size and high quality CH3NH3PbI3 single crystals were grown.