Stable α/δ phase junction of formamidinium lead iodide perovskites for enhanced near-infrared emission

Although formamidinium lead iodide (FAPbI₃) perovskite has shown great promise in the field of perovskite-based optoelectronic devices, it suffers the complications of a structural phase transition from a black perovskite phase (α-FAPbI₃) to a yellow non-perovskite phase (δ-FAPbI₃). Generally, it is pivotal to avoid δ-FAPbI₃ since only α-FAPbI₃ is desirable for photoelectric conversion and near-infrared (NIR) emission. However, herein, we firstly exploited the undesirable δ-FAPbI₃ to enable structurally stable, pure FAPbI₃ films with a controllable α/δ phase junction at low annealing temperature (60 °C) through stoichiometrically modified precursors (FAI/PbI₂ = 1.1-1.5). The α/δ phase junction contributes to a striking stabilization of the perovskite phase of FAPbI₃ at low temperature and significantly enhanced NIR emission at 780 nm, which is markedly different from pure α-FAPbI₃ (815 nm). In particular, the optimal α/δ phase junction with FAI/PbI₂ = 1.2 exhibited preferable long-term stability against humidity and high PLQY of 6.9%, nearly 10-fold higher than that of pure α-FAPbI₃ (0.7%). The present study opens a new approach to realize highly stable and efficient emitting perovskite materials by utilizing the phase junctions.