Nucleation-controlled growth of superior lead-free perovskite Cs3Bi2I9 single-crystals for high-performance X-ray detection

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 1 - 11
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yunxia, Liu, Yucheng, Xu, Zhuo, Ye, Haochen, Yang, Zhou, You, Jiaxue, Liu, Ming, He, Yihui, Kanatzidis, Mercouri G., Liu, Shengzhong (Frank)
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 08.05.2020; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 140/146; 147/135; 639/301/1005/1007; 639/638/298/398; Crystals; Dosage; High temperature; Humanities and Social Sciences; INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; Lasers; Lead compounds; Lead free; Metal halides; multidisciplinary; Nucleation; Perovskites; Photovoltaic cells; Science; Science & Technology - Other Topics; Science (multidisciplinary); Sensors; Single crystals; Solar cells; Thermal stability; Toxicity; X ray detectors; X ray imagery
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16034-w

The organic-inorganic hybrid lead halide perovskites have emerged as a series of star materials for solar cells, lasers and detectors. However, the issues raised by the toxic lead element and marginal stability due to the volatile organic components have severely limited their potential applications. In this work, we develop a nucleation-controlled solution method to grow large size high-quality Cs 3 Bi 2 I 9 perovskite single crystals (PSCs). Using the technique, we harvest some centimeter-sized single crystals and achieved high device performance. We find that X-ray detectors based on PSCs exhibit high sensitivity of 1652.3 μC Gy air −1  cm −2 and very low detectable dose rate of 130 nGy air  s −1 , both desired in medical diagnostics. In addition, its outstanding thermal stability inspires us to develop a high temperature X-ray detector with stable response at up to 100 °C. Furthermore, PSCs exhibit high X-ray imaging capability thanks to its negligible signal drifting and extremely high stability. Organic-inorganic hybrid halide perovskites have been emerged as promising candidates for X-ray detectors while toxicity and instability are known issues. Here, Zhang et al. grow large size lead-free single crystals for high performance X-ray detection and imaging devices that can operate at 100 °C.