Nucleation management for the ambient fabrication of high-performance perovskite photodetectors with the eco-friendly tert-butanol anti-solvent

The preparation of most high-performance perovskite optoelectronic devices usually relies on costly inert or vacuum conditions to circumvent the inimical effects of moisture, which could lead to inferior crystallization processes and nonuniform morphology. Hence, it is imperative to develop a reliable and cost-effective approach to deposit a high-quality perovskite in ambient air. Herein, we investigated the influence of tert-butanol (TBA), sec-butanol (SBA), and isobutanol (IBA) on the nucleation mechanism in ambient atmosphere. It was found that TBA as an eco-friendly anti-solvent leads to the formation of uniform, smooth, pinhole-free, mirror-like perovskite films with enhanced optoelectronic properties compared with other solvents. More excitingly, perovskite photodetectors fabricated using TBA exhibited an excellent photoresponsivity of 1.93 A W−1, which is among the highest values reported for the same device structure and also demonstrates the distinctive advantages of our nucleation management strategy. This work sheds light on developing high-performance perovskite photodetectors using eco-friendly solutions in ambient environment.