Quantifying Stabilized Phase Purity in Formamidinium-Based Multiple-Cation Hybrid Perovskites

A promising approach for the production of highly efficient and stable hybrid perovskite solar cells is employing mixed-ion materials. Remarkable performances have been reached by materials comprising a stabilized mixture of methylammonium (MA+) and formamidinium (FA+) as a monovalent cation. We compare and quantify the methods of stabilizing FA-based perovskites involving the additional blending of the smaller inorganic cations cesium (Cs+) and rubidium (Rb+), which can lead to an improvement in phase purity of black cubic perovskite modification. Even under excess lead iodide conditions, the presence of a separate PbI2 phase as well as hexagonal phases, which are very common for formamidinium-containing perovskites, can be drastically reduced or even completely prevented. In this aspect, adding both Cs+ and Rb+ showed greater effectivity than only adding Cs+, enabling an increase in the percentage of the cubic phase within the material from 45% in the double-cation FA:MA mixture to 97.8% in the quadruple composition. The impact of admixing inorganic cations on the perovskite crystal structure resulted in enlarged homogeneous crystallite sizes and a less pronounced orientational order and indicated also minor modifications of unit cell sizes. Finally, we discuss the impact of the phase purity on charge-carrier recombination dynamics and solar cell performance.