Multifunctional Chiral 2D Lead Halide Perovskites with Circularly Polarized Photoluminescence and Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Properties

Introducing the chiral spacers to two-dimensional (2D) lead halide perovskites (LHPs) enables them to exhibit circularly polarized photoluminescence (CPPL), which could have applications in chiral-optics and spintronics. Despite that a great deal of effort has been made in this field, the reported polarization degree of CPPL at ambient conditions is still very limited, and the integration of multiple functionalities also remains to be explored. Here we report the structures, CPPL, and piezoelectric energy harvesting properties of chiral 2D LHPs, [R-1-(4-bromophenyl)ethylaminium]2PbI4 (R-[BPEA]2PbI4) and [S-1-(4-bromophenyl)ethylaminium]2PbI4 (S-[BPEA]2PbI4). Our results show that these chiral perovskites are direct bandgap semiconductors and exhibit CPPL centered at ∼513 nm with a maximum degree of polarization of up to 11.0% at room temperature. In addition, the unique configurational arrangement of the chiral spacers is found to be able to reduce the interlayer π–π interactions and consequently result in strong electron–phonon coupling. Furthermore, the intrinsic chirality of both R-[BPEA]2PbI4 and S-[BPEA]2PbI4 enables them to be piezoelectric active, and their composite films can be applied to generate voltages and currents up to ∼0.6 V and ∼1.5 μA under periodic impacting with a strength of 2 N, respectively. This work not only reports a high degree of CPPL but also demonstrates piezoelectric energy harvesting behavior for realizing multifunctionalities in chiral 2D LHPs.