Nanoscale Thermal Strain Engineering-Driven Ferroelastic Domain Evolution in CH3NH3PbI3 Perovskites

Jiaqi Zhao; Yuxin Ying; Huarong Zeng; Kunyu Zhao; Guorong Li; Wei Li

doi:10.1021/acsami.2c19592

Nanoscale Thermal Strain Engineering-Driven Ferroelastic Domain Evolution in CH₃NH₃PbI₃ Perovskites

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Mar 8;15(9):12502-12510. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c19592. Epub 2023 Feb 27.

Authors

Jiaqi Zhao^{1

2

3}, Yuxin Ying^{2

3}, Huarong Zeng^{2

3}, Kunyu Zhao^{2

3}, Guorong Li^{2

3}, Wei Li¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China.
² CAS Key Laboratory of Inorganic Functional Materials and Devices, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201899, China.
³ Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.

PMID: 36848597
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c19592

Abstract

A local thermal strain engineering approach via an ac-heated thermal probe was incorporated into methylammonium lead triiodide (MAPbI₃) crystals and acts as a driving force for ferroic twin domain dynamics, local ion migration, and property tailoring. Periodically, striped ferroic twin domains and their dynamic evolutions were successfully induced by local thermal strain and high-resolution thermal imaging, giving decisive evidence of the ferroelastic nature in MAPbI₃ perovskites at room temperature. Local thermal ionic imaging and chemical mappings demonstrate that domain contrasts are from local methylammonium (MA⁺) redistribution into the stripes of chemical segregation in response to the local thermal strain fields. The present results reveal an inherent coupling among local thermal strains, ferroelastic twin domains, local chemical-ion segregations, and physical properties and offer a potential path to improve the functionality of metal halide perovskite-based solar cells.

Keywords: AFM-IR; ferroelastic domains; local thermal strain engineering; methylammonium lead triiodide crystals; perovskite-based solar cells; scanning thermal microscopy.