Size of the organic cation tunes the band gap of colloidal organolead bromide perovskite nanocrystals

Abstract

A few approaches have been employed to tune the band gap of colloidal organic–inorganic trihalide perovskites (OTPs) nanocrystals by changing the halide anion. However, to date, there is no report of electronic structure tuning of perovskite NCs upon changing the organic cation. We report here, for the first time, the room temperature colloidal synthesis of (EA)_x(MA)_1–xPbBr₃ nanocrystals (NCs) (where, x varies between 0 and 1) to tune the band gap of hybrid organic–inorganic lead perovskite NCs from 2.38 to 2.94 eV by varying the ratio of ethylammonium (EA) and methylammonium (MA) cations. The tuning of band gap is confirmed by electronic structure calculations within density functional theory, which explains the increase in the band gap upon going toward larger “A” site cations in APbBr₃ NCs. The photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of these NCs lies between 5% to 85% and the average lifetime falls in the range 1.4 to 215 ns. A mixture of MA cations and its higher analog EA cations provide a versatile tool to tune the structural as well as optoelectronic properties of perovskite NCs.