Synthesis of perovskite surface coated polymer brush by photo-induced atom transfer radical polymerization

Abstract Lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) are expected to be applied in the field of optoelectronics due to their color tunability, high color purity, and near-unity photoluminescence quantum yields. Moreover, the construction of nanocomposite structures with functional polymers has been reported to improve the material stability as well as the ordered structure with high orientation and periodicity. In this study, we demonstrated the synthesis of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) on the PNCs by surface-initiated polymerization. We synthesized PMMA polymer brushes by photo-induced atom transfer radical polymerization (p-ATRP) after coordinating the initiator on the PNC surface. We succeeded in obtaining PMMA-PNCs with a degree of polymerization of 21. Moreover, thermal stability tests exhibited that PMMA-PNCs achieved improved thermal stability compared to pristine-PNCs. This work can provide guidance for developing polymer brush-PNCs via surface-initiated polymerization.