Perovskite-Perovskite Homojunctions via Compositional Doping

J Phys Chem Lett. 2018 Jun 7;9(11):2770-2775. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b00964. Epub 2018 May 11.

Abstract

One of the most important properties of semiconductors is the possibility of controlling their electronic behavior via intentional doping. Despite the unprecedented progress in the understanding of hybrid metal halide perovskites, extrinsic doping of perovskite remains nearly unexplored and perovskite-perovskite homojunctions have not been reported. Here we present a perovskite-perovskite homojunction obtained by vacuum deposition of stoichiometrically tuned methylammonium lead iodide (MAPI) films. Doping is realized by adjusting the relative deposition rates of MAI and PbI2, obtaining p-type (MAI excess) and n-type (MAI defect) MAPI. The successful stoichiometry change in the thin films is confirmed by infrared spectroscopy, which allows us to determine the MA content in the films. We analyzed the resulting thin-film junction by cross-sectional scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM) and found a contact potential difference (CPD) of 250 mV between the two differently doped perovskite layers. Planar diodes built with the perovskite-perovskite homojunction show the feasibility of our approach for implementation in devices.