Investigating heterogeneity and its impact on metal halide perovskite photovoltaics

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Metal halide perovskite photovoltaics are a new photovoltaic technology with the potential tooutperform conventional photovoltaics and accelerate our progress towards net-zero. Twodimensional (2D), layered, metal halide perovskites (2D-MHPs) are an extremely exciting,but understudied, class of perovskite semiconductors that hold the promise of combininghigh-stability with high-performance. Since the 2D perovskite structure admits organiccations, billions of structures are possible, offering us a tunable handle on electronic andstructural properties. However, photovoltaic devices based on pure 2D-perovskites have yetto reach close to those which are theoretically achievable. This is due to charge extractionissues, a result of the insulating properties of the organic cation, combined with poorlyoriented microstructure. The fundamental physical processes governing charge transport in the 2D-MHPs areunderexplored and are critical in determining photovoltaic performance. This project will seekto overcome these challenges by developing an understanding of the factors which affectcharge extraction, focussing in particular on investigating the heterogeneity of thesesystems. This project will investigate the structure and charge carrier dynamics of a range ofcurrent state of the art 2D-perovskites and use this understanding to predict requiredchanges to the cation chemical structures which will lead directly to improved chargetransport, and photovoltaic performance. This understanding will then be used to synthesisenew 2D-perovskites and use them to fabricate high performance photovoltaic devices.